


Someone to Save You

by justkatherinetheokay



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, In between canon, Multi, Non-Canon Relationship, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not A Fix-It, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, The Dark Phoenix Saga, The Eighties, The Seventies, lots of narrative pirouetting to pretend the studio copyright battles have no meaning, original timeline, this will not have a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkatherinetheokay/pseuds/justkatherinetheokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the absence of time-traveling Logan, things were necessarily a little different the first time around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. comfortable in chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Because while Days of Future Past was a wonderful movie that solved a lot of things, it also asked and then left unanswered a lot of questions about what happened in the 1970s of the original timeline.
> 
> In which we steadfastly ignore the notion that the MCU and the X-Men movies exist in separate continuities, pretend X-Men Origins: Wolverine doesn't exist, and refuse to pay any heed to the assertion that Emma Frost is dead.

  


i

  


Tables, microscopes, computers, and white-coated, lab-goggled men flew in every possible direction as a tornado whipped through the Virginia laboratories of Trask Industries. The door of her cage ripped off by the howling winds, Mystique crouched against a wall, head between her knees, and waited for death. 

  


When death came, it was in the form of Emma and Janos helping her to her feet and half-carrying her away. She would rather have been greeted by Angel and—and, god, _Azazel_ , and they were nowhere to be found. 

“Oh, sweetie,” said Emma, stopping entirely, and let Mystique collapse half on top of her. “You’re not dead. We came to save you.” But Emma was dead. The Prism had been destroyed. Unless… 

Mystique gave in to tears for the first time in years as she found herself enveloped in a tight embrace by the only two friends she had left here, alive, aboveground. 

  


Wrapped in a blanket and settled by a rattling radiator in the corner of the sparse studio apartment where they had brought her, Mystique drifted hazily in and out of full consciousness. She was sure Emma had put some sort of calm into her head, because it felt strange to be able to let her guard down so easily, so soon—but somehow she could, and not worry. Emma sat near her but just out of her sightline, doing… something… while Janos, at the rickety kitchen table, was on the phone ordering pizza. 

When Mystique realized what he was doing, she giggled a little. The sound was odd in her head, and she realized something else—she hadn’t laughed, not even so slightly, since Paris. 

“I know,” said Emma beside her. “Delivery pizza isn’t how we did things in the sixties. Too human.” She sighed. “Life is not as pleasant as it once was.” Mystique supposed it wouldn’t be. The thing about the sixties, she thought—well, ’63, most of it, at least—was that even when they didn’t have money, they never _actually_ didn’t have money. There was nothing permanent about the state, not when one of their number could force all the change out of a vending machine on a whim if it was really necessary. 

No, the last time Mystique had eaten delivery pizza, it was in a different time and a different place, with different people, none but one of whom she ever thought about anymore. This occurred to her as Janos hung up the phone and came to crouch in front of her, looking into her face worriedly. 

“Do you think you can talk yet?” he asked, and when she didn’t reply, looked to Emma. “Did those bastards make her mute?” 

“Give her time,” said Emma. For a woman whose demeanor, in Mystique’s memory, almost always matched her surname, she was being remarkably gentle. But then, it had been a long time, and time did change people. “Let her get better.” 

_Thank you_ , Mystique thought. 

  


“We should be recruiting,” said Janos the next morning. 

“It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.” Emma didn’t so much as look up. Janos swallowed his toast and glared at her. 

“Emma—” 

“We should be _regrouping_ , Janos,” the telepath said coldly. “There are still Brotherhood members scattered all over the world, and for the first time in a decade I have the means to find them again.” Mystique had looked around enough last night, once food revived her a little, to realize that the perfectly cubic room, the windows all covered by heavy white shades, was a rather low-budget recreation of Prism—the device they had built for their telepath that first and only summer, the device modeled, not that anyone who remembered would acknowledge it, on— 

“Until you look, we don’t even know who else is _alive_ ,” said Janos. “Better to start fresh—” 

“You, _Mr. Quested_ , should be grateful I looked for you first,” Emma interrupted, then amended, “well, second. You’re just the first who wasn’t in a nigh-impenetrable prison.” Whatever Janos had been about to retort vanished on his lips as the silence that followed Emma’s words became uncomfortable and deafening. Then Mystique broke it, speaking for the first time in—once again—years. 

“Erik.” 

  


“Like hell I’m joining you again,” said Astra. “You and your precious _ideals_. Of course mutants are superior, but why the fuck would I want to _destroy_ all humans? Where would all the money be then?” 

  


“So many dead,” said Emma, ashen-faced, back in the Prism apartment. “Lorelei—I didn’t know about Lorelei.” 

“We could go after Jason,” Janos suggested. Mystique shuddered. “What? If anyone can keep him in line, it’s Emma.” 

“No,” was all she said, and Emma, bless her, listened. 

  


Telford was dead, too, and no one wanted to hunt down Frederick. And Gunther was working with Frederick. 

They were very quickly running out of names. 

  


“Well if you’re not going to use it to look for new mutants,” Janos finally exploded, “what the fuck _will_ you do? Break Erik out of prison?” Slowly Emma turned to look at him, eyes sparkling like, well, diamonds. 

“Man, you are so going to regret saying that,” Mystique predicted. Privately she was thankful he had cracked and brought it up first. 

The plan, when it was finalized, didn’t involve Janos at all. That shouldn’t have been a surprise, and probably wasn’t, but he still sulked while Emma ran through the motions and Mystique rehearsed her forms. Nothing could go wrong this time—like hell she was going back in a cage. 

  


Erik looked very calm in his white cell, lying in a long grey line across his cot. Nothing seemed amiss until the glass circle cut out by Emma’s diamond fingertip shattered on the floor and he didn’t move a muscle. When Mystique looked closer, he barely seemed to be breathing, and when she leapt down and touched his arm in greeting he didn’t seem to notice. She pressed an ear to his heart. Still beating. All was not lost. 

He remained limp and lifeless as they carried him out. Emma’s shields were powerful enough that no one in the Pentagon would know the difference until hours later, so they got out and into Janos’ waiting car unaccosted. Emma took shotgun, leaving Mystique to figure out how best to arrange Erik’s tall form in the backseat. She managed to get him into a rough sitting position, and they sped off. 

Halfway to Richmond, Erik stirred, and the car skidded to a halt in the middle of the highway. Others honked and swerved around them. Janos cursed, kicking furiously at the accelerator. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Emma asked, twisting in her seat to look back at Mystique, who shrugged helplessly. 

“Erik,” she said softly, touching his arm again. “Erik, wake up. You have to let go of the car.” 

“Nuh.” His eyelashes fluttered. “’Stique, what’s…?” He blinked at her. “Nn. ’Sa dream. I… ’m finally… gone. Slipped…” 

“Not a dream.” Mystique tightened her grip on his wrist. Erik looked down at her hand, and then, slowly, rolled his wrist to clasp her fingers in his own. 

“’M out?” He looked around. “Emma. You’re dead.” His eyes went very wide. “I’m dead?” 

“No,” Mystique started to say, but though he turned to look at her, he gave no indication that he paid her words any heed. 

“You’re dead, too?” he said, then, “… he’ll kill me. If I wasn’t dead already—” his voice caught, and in a sort of strangled cry he said, “oh, god, Charles—” 

“Erik, no—” Mystique crawled across the seat to embrace him. “You’re alive. You’re out. Just calm down.” 

“Calm my mind.” He pressed his face into her shoulder. “I’m dead. About time.” With a sigh he collapsed into her arms, and at long last the car began to move again. Mystique pressed a kiss to the top of Erik’s head, threaded her fingers through his hair, and held him all the way back to Richmond. 

  



	2. universe is torn

  


ii

  


“There’s a kid in New Jersey,” said Emma, eyes still unfocused as her diamond form glowed faintly in the darkened room. “And one in Illinois.” 

“I’ll take Illinois,” said Erik almost before she had finished talking. “I… need to get out.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Mystique volunteered. Erik glanced at her. 

“…No, thank you,” he said after a moment’s hesitance. 

“Then go to New Jersey.” 

“Absolutely not.” His cold eyes turned hot with rage and pain for an instant. It took Mystique a minute to realize New Jersey was probably far too close to—right. She barely thought of the place anymore, let alone the people, but Erik had been alone with his thoughts for over a decade. No way he would have forgotten. 

“Then let me go with you,” she repeated. “You can’t do a road trip that long alone, it’s not possible. You need someone to share the driving.” Erik went still and silent at that, and this time, try as she might, she couldn’t think why. 

“No,” he repeated flatly. 

  


“Who’s Alice Dane?” Mystique picked up a crumpled Post-It from the floor, where it must have fallen from Erik’s jacket pocket. He snatched it out of her hand. 

“No one,” he said, and crumpled it again to throw aside. 

“…Right.” Mystique sighed. “You know, Erik, a lot happened while you were in prison. You don’t have to worry about jealousy from me.” Erik regarded her flatly. 

“I wasn’t,” he finally said. 

“Okay.” She turned as if to walk away, little though she could inside a studio apartment, but he grabbed her arm. 

“Mystique. I wasn’t.” He tugged at her arm until she came back and walked straight into a hug. Erik pressed his nose into her sleek hair. “You must remember, Emma… kept me up-to-date on most of what went on. I know. About… everything. Azazel. I _know_.” 

“Oh,” was the only syllable she could get out. 

“And god,” Erik added, softly, “I’m so sorry.” He held her tighter against his chest. 

“There wasn’t—there was nothing you could have done,” she said. 

“I know,” he said again. “That’s why. There should have been.” 

“No, there was _nothing_. He—” she had told no one. Not Emma. No one. “Erik, he died for me. It was—it was so _stupid_ \--he could have gotten away so easily, but he didn’t. They wanted me. And he made sure they—and then they got me anyway.” 

“That’s not your fault. He made his choice, and he chose to save you.” Erik pulled back enough to press a kiss to her forehead. “Anyone would. Anyone _good_. And he was.” 

“The best.” She looked at the floor. Erik tipped her chin up until she met his steady gaze. 

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said. 

“And I’m glad you’re safe.” She kissed his cheek. “And that you’re in… a lot better mood, anyway, than you were. So _who’s_ Alice Dane?” She meant to tease, but Erik shook his head darkly. 

“I told you,” he said. “No one.” 

“And I take it the mutant-searching was a bust?” 

“Unfortunately, yes.” Erik stepped back and sighed, looking around at the white walls of the small room. “We really need a bigger… base of operations.” 

“This place does look a lot like the cell,” Mystique realized. Erik smiled wanly. 

“There is that,” he said. “Right now, though, I’d really just like to be able to take a shower in privacy.” 

“I don’t mind too terribly,” Mystique muttered as he walked off toward the corner stall, stripping off his shirt as he went. 

“I heard that,” said Erik. “And of course you don’t care. You walk around naked anyway.” 

  


“I’m exhausted.” Emma flopped, uncharacteristically ungraceful, onto the white leather couch. “I can’t _do_ this constantly. I physically cannot. None of you understands how much it takes—” 

“Yes, I do,” Erik snapped, and the room went silent. Mystique and Emma, at least, knew what hung heavy and unsaid in that reminder. Erik sighed. “If it’s too much, you ought to take a break. Surely one of you knows some mutant we can track down without having to use Ce—Prism.” The silence remained; if anything, it grew more awkward at that slip. Finally Mystique broke it. 

“I might know some people,” she said. “Met them in Vietnam about a year ago.” 

“Would their mutations be of use to us?” Erik asked. “To our cause?” 

“Definitely.” Mystique smiled. “Plus, they owe me.” 

  


Private Gitter leaned back on the bar, shaking his head. 

“Sorry, Mystique,” he said, “but I really don’t see the point. No one here knows I’m a mutant. They just see tats, and don’t ask any further.” 

“What happens when they do find out?” she countered. “Do you really think they’ll just accept you?” 

“ _If_ they find out,” said Gitter. “And they won’t. Point is, I blend in here, and as long as I blend in, who cares? I’d think you of all people would see that.” Mystique mouthed at him wordlessly for a moment, struck dumb and furious. Erik sighed. 

“Clearly this one would be better suited to New York,” he said, and somehow the heavy disdain in his voice, the way he sneered the words _New York_ as if disgusted by the very notion, just made it worse. Mystique turned on her heel and stalked out. 

  


“I didn’t think you missed him anymore.” Erik’s gaze never left the road ahead; his hands didn’t move on the steering wheel. At first Mystique double-took, convinced she had imagined the words. Then he glanced at her expectantly. 

“I—I don’t.” 

“Really?” His forehead furrowed. Mystique looked out the window, mulling it over. She didn’t. She really didn’t. It had been too long for her to care, too many years without a word, too much pain without so much as a glancing touch from Cerebro. The estrangement had never been one she expected to be permanent, but he had made no move towards reconciliation, and she was hardly going to look like she was crawling back. 

“Really.” It was strangely freeing to think of Charles so clearly, to realize at last how little he mattered anymore. 

“Oh.” Erik sounded almost pained by the affirmation. Mystique frowned. 

“Do you?” she asked doubtfully. The car was coldly silent for what must have been almost a full minute. 

“Constantly,” said Erik, the word hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and they didn’t speak again all the way back to Richmond.


	3. twins

  


iii

  


“There are _two_ in Alexandria,” said Emma, actually smiling from her seat in the center of Prism. “Twins. Late teens. _Amazing_ powers.” 

“Late teens,” Erik echoed. “We did find—I mean, that is the ideal age for recruiting. Let’s go.” He looked around. 

“You’re the boss, boss.” Emma smirked. Erik smirked back. 

Day by day, little by little, he could feel his confidence returning. This kind of deference helped. Magneto was beginning to feel normal again. 

  


Mystique saw Erik come over anxious when his eyes caught the name on the mailbox. It wasn’t until the door opened and the woman’s jaw dropped, his name sliding out, that she understood why. 

“Magda,” Erik breathed. “Mein Gott.” 

“So you found out about the kids,” said the woman—Magda Maximoff, apparently. “Only took you eighteen years.” She looked around, as if seeking some kind of escape, then sighed. “I guess you should come in. You and, um—” 

“My associate,” said Erik quickly, and Mystique nodded, glad that this time she _hadn’t_ gone with the guise of wife or girlfriend. “Um—” 

“Leni Zauber,” said Mystique, putting on her best imitation of Erik’s own accent. “Old friend from Germany. Erik is… the closest I have to a brother, and he asked me to come along. I hope this is all right.” 

“Oh—of course,” said Magda, who looked just as relieved to avoid that kind of awkwardness. “It’s nice to meet you.” Mystique shook her proffered hand. For his part, Erik looked at her stricken as soon as Magda turned away to lead them inside. 

“What?” she hissed. 

“Closest you have to a…” He mouthed wordlessly for a moment, then shook his head and looked away. _Oh._ Mystique rolled her eyes. Before she could reply, they were sitting down on a couch in the living room and Magda had opened a door to yell down a flight of stairs for _PETER!_ to _GET UP HERE!_

“Perfect timing,” she told them, “Wanda should be home from work any minute now. PETER!” she added one last time before shutting the door and wandering off into the kitchen, muttering about getting everyone a drink. 

“Hi,” said a voice from the chair facing them. Erik and Mystique both nearly fell off the couch. A young man with silver hair grinned at them in a way that showed all his teeth, and Mystique, recovering, had to laugh. 

“Aw, look, he got his smile from you,” she said as Erik stared dumbfounded at his son. 

“Where did you _come_ from?” he finally managed. 

“Someplace you've been, apparently," said the boy. Erik's mouth snapped shut. Mystique snickered. 

"You walked right into that one," she said. Erik just shook his head. 

"Nah, I came from down there.” The kid jerked his head toward the basement. “Why, didn’t you see me? Is that a stolen car you’re driving? More importantly, how do you drive it without keys? Will you teach me?” 

“I—” Erik got only the syllable out before the boy continued, speaking so rapidly that Mystique had to focus hard to process every question as he asked it. 

“Are you really my dad? Because you don’t look like me. But I guess I look like Mom. Hi, Mom. Thanks, Mom.” Mystique blinked, and the boy had a beer in his hand. Magda, in the kitchen doorway, stopped short and sighed heavily. 

“Nice trick, _Pietro_ ,” she said. “Please don’t drink that.” 

“Ooh. Birth certificate name. I’m in trouble.” He downed the bottle in what looked like a single gulp. “Bracing. So, _Dad_ , why’d it take you eighteen years? Are you just that slow? Oh, speaking of slow, Mom, Wanda’ll be here in three. Two if she’s not too tired, but she is. Everyone must be tired, I figure, they’re all so _slow_.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Magda handed bottles to Erik and Mystique, who smiled and thanked her, and stepped aside again. “You’ll like Wanda. _She’s_ a good kid.” 

“Oh, Mom, I’m hurt.” Pietro gave the room that grin again. His mother gave him a look that Mystique recognized as mostly long-suffering. God knew she’d spent almost her whole life around one man or another who brought out that feeling. 

“Right. I’ll just let you two get… acquainted.” And Magda left again. Pietro’s grin didn’t falter, Erik was still staring dumbly, and Mystique sighed. This was already a very long meeting. 

  


Wanda was re-shelving some files when someone tapped her shoulder. She turned to see a wide-eyed woman with rather messy dark hair looking up at her curiously. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “do you need something?” 

“Do I know you?” the woman asked. Wanda frowned. 

“Um—I don’t think so?” She looked faintly familiar, she decided, but Wanda hadn’t met a lot of people in the internship, if she was honest, and this woman definitely wasn’t one of them. 

“Your eyes.” The woman peered closer. “I think—I think I remember your eyes.” 

“My eyes?” Wanda blinked. The woman looked dazed for a moment. “What about them?” 

“I don’t know,” said the stranger faintly. “They—the color, it’s—the color. Like, like seafoam, or steel, or, or—a bullet—” she swayed on her feet. “Yes, gunmetal—just like—” 

“There you are!” A young man came dashing out of a corridor off this hall. “Thank god. You’re coming back with me.” He grabbed the woman’s arm and started to pull her away. 

“I’m going back to sleep,” the woman told Wanda rather placidly. “It’s nice. You just drift away. Barely even feel the cold. You’ll like it—” then she was around the corner, and gone. Wanda stared after them for a moment before she shrugged it off and returned to her shelving. 

About ten minutes later the young man came back to lean on the wall outside the corridor, panting. Wanda glanced over at him. He smiled without humor. 

“I’m sorry if she scared you,” he said, when he seemed to have caught his breath. “I don’t know how she got out. She wasn’t supposed to come out of deep freeze for a week.” 

“Deep freeze?” 

“Cryo patient.” He swept a hand across his forehead, ruffling his hair back. “I think she used to be CIA, but there’s some kind of amnesia, and—anyway, the scientists are studying her. They’ve been taking her in and out of cryo for a decade.” He frowned. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this. Who are you?” 

“Oh—um, Wanda Maximoff.” She set the file box on an empty lower shelf and offered her hand. The young man shook it. 

“The intern. Right.” He sighed. “Yeah, you should probably, um—forget all that.” 

“I’ll try.” Wanda smiled. “Who are you?” 

“Alexander Pierce. Um, Agent Pierce.” He smiled. His eyes were very blue, Wanda thought, and wondered why she had. “Are you enjoying S.H.I.E.L.D., Wanda Maximoff the intern?” 

“Well, it seems there’s never a dull moment.” That made him laugh. He had a very nice laugh. 

“Pierce!” A boring-looking bureaucrat stuck his head around the corner. “Your pal Fury’s checked in, you want to get back here?” Pierce sighed. 

“Yeah, okay.” He rolled his eyes for Wanda’s benefit, then smiled, waved, and walked away. She tried not to stare after him. 

  


Pietro’s wide grin still hadn’t faded by the time the front door opened and a rather small-statured, auburn-haired girl stepped out of her shoes just inside. 

“Pete,” she called in a soft, sweet voice, “something really strange happened at work today—” Walking into the living room, she stopped short. “…Hello there. What’s going on?” 

“Dad finally showed up.” Pietro’s grin _still didn’t break_ as he gestured toward Erik. It was getting seriously creepy, Mystique thought. 

“And he met you first. Great.” The girl—Wanda, obviously—sighed, apparently unruffled. “I’m going to get something to eat, okay? Then I’ll be back to do damage control.” 

“Love you too, sis!” Finally Pietro’s expression softened to a somewhat more genuine smile. “Mom’s right, you know,” he said. “She is the good kid.” 

“Yes, I am.” Wanda emerged from the kitchen with an apple so quickly that for a second Mystique almost wondered if she and Pietro shared powers. Then she walked at a normal pace to curl up in the armchair beside her brother’s and gaze at them with calm, cool eyes that were nearly as eerie as Pietro’s sharklike grin. “So who are you?” This question was directed not at Erik, but at Mystique, as she realized after a moment. 

“A friend of your father’s,” she said carefully. “We’ve come to talk to you about something very important.” 

“Like how it took you eighteen years to realize we existed?” said Pietro. “Is that it? Is that it? What is it?” 

“Look.” Erik leaned forward, moving and speaking for the first time in almost the entire time they had been here. “We know the two of you have powers. Gifts, out of the ordinary for humans.” Mystique could hear the faint distaste as he pronounced the word, and fought back a grin. “So do we.” 

“Cool.” Pietro sat back in his chair, grinning again, his posture expanding. At the same time, Wanda’s shrunk. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said quietly. “I mean—yes, he does, but I—I don’t have any powers. I’m normal.” 

“It’s true,” said Pietro. “Wanda’s not a weirdo like me. So, what can you do?” 

“Wait.” Erik frowned, turning to Mystique. “Emma said two. The _coordinates_ said two.” 

“She did say two.” Mystique nodded. “Siblings.” 

“It could be Anya,” said Wanda. “Our sister. She’s nine.” 

“Late teens, Emma said,” Erik murmured, and looked back at Wanda. “Are you sure? Your powers may not have manifested yet.” Wanda looked distinctly uncomfortable. 

“I’m _normal_ ,” she insisted, and as she said it the air thrummed with some kind of energy. Mystique felt it, and Erik clearly did too. Pietro didn’t seem to notice. 

“You don’t have to hide with us,” said Mystique slowly, gently. “Would you like to see what I can do?” 

“Sure,” said Pietro, so Mystique stood up and, after a moment’s consideration, slipped out of this form and into what she felt was a decent imitation of Erik, who nearly fell off the couch in alarm. Both the teenagers grinned. “ _Awesome._ ” 

“Mystique,” said Erik in a tone so frosty it might have been Emma, and she shifted back with a giggle. 

“So what do you do?” Wanda asked her father, who turned his gaze on a metal ashtray at the center of the coffee table. It slowly floated up into the air. The twins gasped in the same breath, and cried, in unison, “the metal guy!” 

“So it _was_ him,” said Pietro gleefully. 

“I told you so,” his sister told him. 

“It could just as easily have been marathon guy! I mean, look at _me_!” 

“It’s a genetic _mutation_ , Pietro, you read that Oxford guy’s dissertation too—you don’t _inherit_ athletic ability—” 

“Mutations can be passed down!” 

“His wasn’t a mutation!” 

“Wanda?” Mystique cut in. “Um—you’re glowing.” She was, slightly, with a faint aura of red light that was brightest around her head, almost like a halo. 

“What? No. I’m normal,” said Wanda again, and the air thrummed, and it was as if the light was sucked back into her skin. Pietro glanced at her, and double-took. 

“Wanda, what—?” 

“What can you do?” Erik asked, his voice the gentlest Mystique had heard it in—possibly ever, actually. 

“I just—” Wanda shook her head. “I’ve never—it’s nothing. Nothing important. It’s—” 

“You have powers?” Pietro had an odd look on his face—like excitement crossed with pain. “You never told me.” 

“I didn’t want anyone to know.” Wanda, meanwhile, just looked like she wanted to become a part of the upholstery. “Whatever—it’s like whatever I say—happens. If I’m not careful with it.” 

“So when you say you’re normal…” Erik sat back on the couch. “Huh.” 

“If I say I’m normal, I will be,” Wanda said in nearly a whisper, “if only for a little while.” Suddenly, if not exactly unexpectedly, Mystique’s heart hurt. 

“You shouldn’t have to hide it,” she said. “I used to feel exactly like you did, but I learned—you shouldn’t _have_ to.” 

“Says who?” Wanda muttered. 

“Your father, actually.” Mystique jerked her head in Erik’s direction, and Wanda looked up, startled. 

“What?” She looked back and forth between them. When Erik didn’t speak, Mystique sighed and took up the conversation again. 

“Erik heads a—a group—called the Brotherhood of Mutants. We fight for the rights of everyone like us.” 

“We’re the next stage in the advancement of human evolution,” Erik put in, now that they were back in familiar territory, Mystique supposed. “We should be—recognized as such.” 

“Advancement _is_ what I do best.” Pietro snorted. “That sounds awesome. So, what, are you here to recruit us? Huh?” Erik and Mystique looked at each other, then back at the twins. 

“Precisely,” said Erik. “What do you say?” 

“Hell yeah.” Pietro grinned. Wanda looked less sure. 

“Do we have to come now?” she asked. “I mean—I guess, I guess I’d like to learn how to control it first, and—you know—graduate from high school.” 

“Oh.” Apparently that hadn’t occurred to Erik. Mystique could sort of see how it wouldn’t. “Er. I suppose if you wanted to join us in a year, say—I expect we’ll still be around?” 

“Yeah.” Wanda nodded slowly. “I could take a gap year before college. Or two. Maybe.” 

“...College. Right.” Erik shook his head and turned to Mystique. “You—what do you think? You know more about—” 

“I am _so_ not the person to ask about college,” said Mystique. Erik’s expression darkened a little, and instantly she regretted her wording. 

“Maybe we should check in again after graduation,” Wanda suggested. “That—leaves a lot of time, I guess, for me to decide.” Erik nodded slowly. 

“Makes sense,” he said, and looked to Pietro. “What about you? Will you come now?” The boy looked conflicted, glancing at his sister, who smiled sadly but encouragingly. 

“You should go if you want to, Pete,” she said. “You’ll probably like it a lot better than high school.” 

“I—” for once he seemed to struggle with words, and for once, when they came, it was slowly. “No. I’ll wait it out. I don’t want to go with them yet if you don’t come too.” Wanda smiled, really smiled, for the first time since they had met her. Pietro turned back to Erik. “But I can tell you now I’ll join you after graduation. That’s confirmed. I just can’t go yet.” He reached over and poked Wanda’s arm. “Someone’s got to watch out for my little sisters.” Immediately his twin’s sweet smile turned to a look of exasperation. 

“I’m older than you!” Oh, and Mystique remembered _that_ argument. 

“By five minutes!” 

  


“Not exactly _unsuccessful_ ,” said Mystique. Emma frowned. 

“Then why aren’t they with you?” 

“Erik will explain.” Mystique grinned at him. He gave her his very best death glare, which, considering he was Erik, was pretty damn scary. “After today, actually, Erik has a lot of explaining to do.” 

“What?” Emma looked back and forth between them, then peered more closely at Erik. Her eyes widened. “Wait. _Kids_? I thought you were—you know—” 

“Homosexual?” Mystique supplied. Erik growled at the both of them wordlessly and stalked off toward his corner of the room. 

“I’m making a new helmet,” he snarled. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so apparently now this is developing, like, an actual plot and stuff. this was completely unintentional. hope you're enjoying it.


	4. homeward bound

  


iv

  


“Look, I know I owe you a lot, Ra—Mystique,” said Alex. He looked so utterly at ease, leaning on the doorframe before them. It warmed Erik’s heart like nothing had in a while. “And Erik, I know we’ve had our differences, but it’s great to see you, man.” 

“But?” said Mystique, because what else, Erik thought, could those statements, prefaced by ‘look’, precipitate? Alex sighed. 

“ _But_ I don’t agree with your methods, and even if I did, I’m really not in a place to go gallivanting off to save mutantkind.” To Erik’s surprise, Alex ended that sentence smiling. “Besides, I’m well under control, and I kind of… _like_ humans, these days. I married one.” 

“…Oh my goodness congratulations!” To everyone’s surprise, Mystique jumped up and hugged him. And with that, the conversation turned utterly… mundane. Erik sat back, shocked, and watched in silence as the two younger mutants talked excitedly about Alex’s life. 

This wasn’t a setback, not really. So Alex clearly wasn’t coming. So Mortimer Toynbee was next to useless so far. It didn’t matter. It was June, and the kids were about to graduate, and soon the new Brotherhood would be complete. 

  


“What do you think of Pierce?” Mystique asked, watching from a distance as Wanda said goodbye to her… friend, was what she had said, though neither of the adults really bought it. Erik didn’t look up from the road map he was hiding behind. 

“Bit Aryan for my tastes.” Mystique snorted. 

“And Charles and I weren’t?” 

“You’re blue.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Not the same thing.” 

“See, my concern would be that he’s a bit old for her.” 

“You, of all people, worry about an _age difference_?” 

“He seems to really like her, though,” said Mystique, deciding to ignore that. 

“He wouldn’t if he knew what she really was.” 

“You don’t know that. Magda clearly knew what you were, and she still—” she broke off, frowning. “You know, I don’t actually know anything about you and her. You never said.” 

“There’s never been a time between us when talking to you about my exes would have been particularly apropos,” said Erik dryly. 

“True.” Mystique shrugged. “Except, it’s not true—I mean, we do talk about one of your exes—a lot, actually—we _all_ do—” 

“ _Mystique._ ” 

“What?” 

“You _know_ what,” said Erik disgustedly, more crumpling than folding the road map to shove it into his bag. “Tell everyone it’s time to go, would you? We’ve been here long enough.” 

  


The road _was_ nice, with others by his side. On this leg Erik sat in the back with Mystique, still looking over maps, while Wanda drove and Pietro lounged low in the passenger seat, feet on the dashboard and headphones blocking out the rest of the world. It was deathly hot outside the car, here in the middle of the country, but with the windows open the high speed created a nice breeze within. Erik hadn’t been through the Great Plains since a summer he no longer thought about. On either side of the highway, wheat fields stretched off seemingly into a blue eternity. 

_If not for his double means of control over the vehicle, he would have nearly killed them both the moment he realized how closely the color of the sky above was mirrored in—_

“You sure you’re all right?” Mystique was looking at him oddly again. “You look ill.” 

“I’m fine.” Erik turned to gaze obstinately out the window and take in the admittedly monotonous scenery. In the front, Pietro snorted, and he wondered how loud those headphones were, anyway, or if they were even on at all. 

  


Emma, Janos, and Mortimer met them in Las Vegas. It was the farthest west Erik had ever been in the United States, he realized with a jolt the second night there. When he mentioned this to Mystique, she volunteered nothing in return, only frowned before _Hollywood_ slipped past her lips and she looked momentarily as if she had seen a ghost. 

He wondered how old they had been, and where they had gone, and what they had seen. 

  


“So these are your kids.” Emma surveyed the eighteen-year-olds, hands on her hips. “I do see some resemblance.” Pietro grinned. She raised her eyebrows. “Guess the shark runs in the family. And you’ve got his eyes,” she added, to Wanda. 

Erik too saw a resemblance, more and more with every passing day. He had already grown used to the little things in their appearances, though—what was new was the ways they somehow resembled him in their personalities, despite having grown up without his influence. 

Pietro was probably, Erik thought, what Erik would have been had he grown up in the same ease and comfort. The boy found such joy in his gift, using it to ends that were petty, yes, but _fun_. Wanda, on the other hand, as she began to learn to use her own vast powers, to control them, reminded him of himself as he had been—and yet still not. She was such a sweet girl, and her struggling was all in hesitance, not a trace of anger in her. There was no reason she should have it, after all. 

As ever he wondered how much of the psyche could be inherited. As ever, he didn’t have someone conveniently by his side to ask. 

  


“You’re a better teacher than I’d have given you credit for,” said Emma. Erik shrugged. Wanda’s red halos bloomed around a small circle of floating objects, random things they had been able to find in the hotel room: a stapler, a tumbler, a bar of soap. She smiled up at them faintly from where she hovered at the center. Mystique snorted. 

“He’s definitely come a long way from pushing people off tall structures and expecting them to fly.” 

“…I won’t ask,” said Emma. 

“That _worked_ ,” Erik snapped. “I thought you believed in the ends justify the means.” 

“Only when there are actual stakes to consider. There was nothing dire about that.” 

“Whatever, _Cha_ —” he cut himself off, but too late. Mystique looked as if she’d been struck. “God, I’m sorry,” Erik managed as his stomach became a writhing pit of snakes, and before he could do any more harm he turned and walked away. 

“Is he upset?” he heard Wanda ask worriedly. “Did I mess up?” 

“No, you’re doing great,” Emma assured her. “This isn’t about you, sweetie, he—he has his own problems to work out.” 

  


“Dad?” said Wanda quietly, knocking on the doorframe several hours later. Erik glanced up in surprise. Where Pietro had taken to calling him that almost instantly, more as a form of gleeful mockery than anything else, Wanda rarely seemed comfortable with it. 

“Yes?” 

“I was—I was wondering.” She looked at the floor. “Um, I was wondering if you knew anything about something that happened when I was working at S.H.I.E.L.D.” Erik frowned. 

“What was it?” 

“Well—more, if you knew a _person_. But I don’t know her name.” 

“The only people I know who’ve worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. are you and that Pierce kid,” said Erik. Wanda nodded. 

“Right. No. She wasn’t—she didn’t work for them. She was an experiment.” Erik leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. 

“A person as an experiment? Was she a mutant?” She certainly wouldn’t be the first. At this point he was almost more exhausted by the thought than angered. 

“I don’t _think_ so?” Wanda shook her head as she sank down to sit cross-legged on the end of his bed. “She was an amnesiac. This was about a year ago, and even then apparently she had been in and out of cryo for over a decade. Alexander told me she used to work for the CIA.” Erik was reasonably certain his heart stopped, but he betrayed nothing outwardly, and Wanda continued. “She got out of the lab once, I guess, and came up to me—she asked if she knew me. She recognized my eyes, I think, and Emma told me I have yours.” She peered at him, but Erik gave no answer; he couldn’t think how. Wanda frowned. “I just—that reminded me, and made me think, maybe you had something to do with her, sometime in your past. Only amnesia seems less like a metal thing, and more like, I don’t know—” 

“Telepathy,” said Erik hoarsely. 

“Exactly.” Wanda looked down at the generic hotel bedspread beneath her and traced the quilted outline of a fleur-de-lis with a fingertip. “Dad, why don’t you ever talk about Charles Xavier?” 

“What?” It was more shock than anything else. “How do you—who told—why do you know that name?” 

“I’m not really sure.” Wanda frowned. “I heard it somewhere. But—” 

“It’s a long story, and I don’t talk about it because I don’t want to,” said Erik shortly. “Now, I wonder if you would do me the kindness of returning to your room? It’s late, and I’d like to sleep.” Wanda’s eyes hardened slightly in a way he had never seen before. 

“All right,” she said, and stood. “Goodnight.” And she left Erik alone with his thoughts, which was never really a good place for Erik to be— 

But it wasn’t like there was anyone else to share them. 

  


“We need to go to New York.” Mystique jolted out of bed, moving fast enough to actually throw the girl against the wall. Wanda barely caught herself with a burst of red light that let her float in midair above the bed. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry—” Mystique pressed her hands over her mouth in horror. “Instinct. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s all right.” Wanda floated down slowly, gently, to sit on the edge of the mattress. “I should have thought that through. I know you’ve been through some terrible things—I should have woken you more gently.” 

“It’s fine. It’s fine.” Mystique pressed her palms over her eyes for a moment before she looked up again, morphing her catlike pupils wide to see in the dark. “Wait. What did you say?” 

“We need to go to New York,” Wanda said again. 

“No,” said Mystique flatly. 

“Well, maybe you don’t have to go, then, but Father does,” Wanda insisted. “He _needs_ to.” 

“No, he…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence. Yes. There was no denying it: some part of Erik did need to go to New York. She had long ago given up on closure, but he clearly hadn’t, and now spent his life pretending he could manufacture it when the truth was he had spent the vast majority of the time since Cuba locked deep in a prison that she was coming to realize, though he never talked about it, must have been torture. 

“He _does_ ,” said Wanda again, and Mystique just nodded. 

“All right,” she said, “but I’m not going. Get Emma to take him.” 

“No, I don’t think she should,” said Wanda. “Pietro and I will go.” 

  


There was a padlock on the gate, but Erik broke it easily—no, not broke it so much as melted it down and twisted it into a form that didn’t really resemble anything in particular. It fell to the ground with a dull thud and he stared up at the gate for a long moment. 

“X marks the spot?” said Pietro. Wanda shot him a look. He shrugged and mouthed, _what?_ She rolled her eyes. 

They left the car just inside the gate and walked the rest of the way. Their father moved as if in a dream along the driveway, looking around with an expression Wanda had never seen before, on him. It was almost as if he was about to cry. The path was unkempt, overgrown, and she had to wonder if a car had even driven on it in the past few years. Old tire tracks were clearly present, but hidden under a tall layer of grass. 

Erik stopped short when they reached a circular drive in front of a grand mansion, stopped and stood and stared up at it. 

“Uh, what—?” Pietro started to say, but Wanda smacked his arm and he was quiet. She touched her father’s arm more gently. He looked at her with another expression she had never seen: he looked lost. 

“I can’t feel anything,” he said hoarsely. Wanda frowned. 

“What?” 

“I keep reaching, but he’s not—I can’t find—” he shook his head. “Maybe the helmet did permanent damage. I don’t know. I should be able to _feel_ him. It’s how telepathy—” 

“Maybe he’s not here,” said Wanda. Erik shook his head. 

“No, he has to be. Where else would he go?” 

“Hasn’t it been twelve years?” she pointed out. “And that driveway doesn’t look as if it’s been used for a while.” Erik just stood there shaking his head. 

“I have an idea,” said Pietro dryly, and uncharacteristically he walked, slowly and deliberately, up to the front door, and knocked. The sound rang out in the silence. Then he was back at Wanda’s side and they all stood there for several moments, waiting. 

Finally the door creaked open ever so slightly, and a young, pale, bespectacled face peered out. Erik frowned, as if startled into his usual self. 

“Hank?” he said, in the same instant the young man said, 

“ _Erik_?” 

“Who’s Hank?” Pietro whispered loudly. Wanda shrugged. The young man looked back and forth between them. 

“I think the better question is, who are _you_?” he said. He sounded oddly… hopeful? And his eyes lingered on Wanda a bit longer, like he was searching for something. She raised her eyebrows. 

“Pretty much the greatest guy ever,” Pietro replied immediately. Wanda sighed. This was going to go wonderfully. 

“Is he here?” said Erik, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. The young man—Hank—sighed. 

“Yes and no,” he said. Erik frowned. 

“What does that…?” 

“You should probably go,” Hank interrupted. “You’ll do him no favors, coming back now. Maybe if you’d brought _her_ with you…” He looked at Wanda again, and again she didn’t understand. She shrugged, and his face fell a little. 

“She didn’t want to come,” said Erik shortly. For an instant Hank looked like he had just been stabbed. Then his face hardened. 

“Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “He might actually have _wanted_ to see _her_.” Erik took a step back that didn’t look completely voluntary. 

“Would you just tell me where he is?” he asked. Hank sighed. 

“Fine,” he said reluctantly. “He won’t have to know, anyway. Why don’t you all come in?” 

  



	5. fall back down

  


v

  


Erik remembered the mansion as an elegant, airy, happy place, all wood paneling and natural light. Now—well, the paneling was still there, at least, if hidden by a layer of dust heavier than the curtains that covered every window they passed. Hank walked through it without a second glance; the kids, who had never seen it in its old glory, followed his lead, quite matter-of-fact. Erik trailed behind, unable to keep his jaw quite closed. 

“What happened?” he asked Hank, who led them to the old lab rather than the parlor or study. This, at least, was more or less as Erik recalled—it was still clean, anyway. 

“What do you _think_?” Hank snapped, rounding on him. Erik recoiled. 

“Surely this isn’t all because Mystique and I left,” he said. “I thought he was—” 

“What, you thought he was just fine? That he got over it?” Actually, Erik had been about to say _stronger than that_ , but now he kept his mouth firmly shut. Hank glared at him a moment longer, then shook his head. “No, it was—well, it was that, but it was also so much more.” 

“Maybe we should leave you two alone,” said Wanda. “Um—Mr.—?” 

“McCoy,” Erik supplied. 

“Is there any possibility of a glass of water?” 

“Or a bathroom,” Pietro put in. 

“It was a long drive.” 

“Of course.” Hank’s expression softened. He still looked very young, had been Erik’s first thought, for all he had to be in his mid-thirties by now; but now, up close, he could see the lines in Hank’s forehead, the shadows both under his eyes and in them.“The kitchen’s in the wing off the front hall in the direction we didn’t take, and there’s a bathroom down this hall that way and to the right.” Wanda smiled sweetly. 

“Thank you,” she said, and started to drag Pietro off with her until he vanished into his usual blur. Wanda rolled her eyes and shut the door behind them. 

“Nice kids,” said Hank. “At first I thought maybe they were yours, but the girl at least seems _way_ too nice to have _your_ genes.” 

“She takes after her mother,” said Erik. “So _what happened_?” Hank sighed. 

“Sit down,” he said, pulling out a stool for his own. Erik complied. “Charles recovered, some. Moira left. We built a new Cerebro, recruited some new students. He started the school. Everything was going fine. Then—then the war started, and the students started getting drafted, sent overseas, dying.” He closed his eyes. "Sean was one of the first to go. He was captured, tortured... we think he died in the Hanoi Hilton.” 

“The what?” said Erik. Hank looked at him bleakly. 

“Right,” he said. “You’ve been in prison. I don’t suppose you saw much news.” 

“No, I—” But Hank’s face had twisted, suddenly, into a rage that was much more frightening on his older, more haggard face than it had been when he was nineteen. 

“Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten. Well, you’ll be pleased to know society has progressed more or less in Kennedy’s vision, despite your best efforts—the Civil Rights Act passed, man walked on the moon—” 

“Ah, yes,” Erik muttered. “I had almost forgotten. _You_ still think I killed him.” 

“Well, if you didn’t,” Hank snapped, “who did?” 

“A man with a metal arm,” said Erik. Hank blinked. 

“What?” 

“I don’t know, exactly. Between trying to focus on bending the bullet _right_ that time and the distraction that arm posed, I didn’t see the agents coming until it was too late.” 

“So you weren’t _trying_ to assassinate the President?” Hank prodded rather incredulously. 

“I most certainly wasn’t. Whoever was behind the assassination—” Erik closed his eyes. “I don’t know much, but whomever they were, I’m sure they knew about his powers.” 

“You’re telling me JFK was a mutant,” said Hank, still looking entirely unconvinced. 

“An empath of some kind, I expect,” said Erik. “Emma couldn’t—she wasn’t yet able to tell the powers themselves at a distance, not then.” 

“Well, for a successful politician, empathy certainly—” 

“We shouldn’t speculate,” Erik interrupted. “Speculation, when humans do it, is what fuels our very oppression.” 

“Wait, but,” said Hank. “So, Emma—that’s Shaw’s telepath, right?” 

“The Brotherhood’s telepath,” said Erik coldly. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry—she had some kind of Cerebro device?” 

“Prism,” Erik corrected, and said nothing else, even when, immediately, Hank was all questions. 

“Prism—Charles said she turned into diamond, right? She had a form like that. So was it called Prism because—huh. Did it interact with the diamond form in some way? Did it sort of serve to refract brain waves, or something? That could be an interesting model…” Hank trailed off. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” 

“I don’t give up my organization’s secrets,” said Erik. Hank rolled his eyes. 

“Fine.” He seemed calmer now. Erik decided it might be time to try again. 

“How is he?” Wrong choice, apparently. Hank immediately went tense and furious once more. 

“Where were we?” he said. “Oh, right. Students were leaving for the jungles and dying there in droves. And I thought Charles’ heart was broken _before_. You can’t have a school without any students, and when the students are getting shipped home in boxes... Oh, and apparently there was this military high-up who kept finding out the mutants and separating them out, then sending them off to some special installation to do god knows what to them. So those that didn’t die, we lost track of entirely. And of course he couldn’t be drafted, because he’s disabled, but he was probably—probably about the only man in the country who wanted to, after a point, because with his powers he might’ve been able to—” he shook his head. “And all the while _you_ —” 

“How is any of that my fault?” Erik snapped. 

“You could have been here,” Hank snarled back. “Maybe he would have been able to deal with it if you were.” There was still something missing here, Erik thought. 

“How _is_ he dealing with it?” he asked, by now a little frustrated with the lack of a straight answer. Hank sighed. 

“How’s anyone dealing with it these days?” 

“I don’t _know_! I’ve been in prison, remember?” At that moment the door to the lab opened and Erik turned around, expecting to see the twins returning. Instead— 

  


“Hank,” Charles started to say, “I need—I need. It’s—are there people in the house, Hank?” He could hear the words slurring, and made a face. “I feel—it’s too _loud_ , I need my—” 

“Charles?” said the man at the counter. He looked almost—uncertain—though he was hazy, Charles had no such doubts. Hadn’t changed a day. Not a day. Fuck him. Not actually, though, not like it used to be, no, just— _fuck_ him. 

“ _Erik?_ " he asked, and it was like the shock kicked the last drops of serum from his system and it all came in all at once, at the forefront a great steely tide of surprise and regret and concern and fury and bitterness and relief and 

  


_Love._ The word echoed throughout the room, though probably it was just in their heads. Charles’ eyes opened as Hank snapped his fingers above them once more. 

“Charles. Wake up.” 

“You. I. What happened?” He blinked, and then Hank was nearly knocked flat with the force of the veritable lightning bolt that struck his mind. Either he had lost his tolerance to telepathy during the decade of serum, or Charles was just feeling particularly sloppy. He supposed either theory, and perhaps both, made sense enough. He heard Erik shudder from where he stood near the wall. Consigned to the corner. It had seemed appropriate; also, Hank had spent almost a decade and a half longing to tell Erik to go stand in the goddamn corner. Or to go and do much worse. 

“You passed out.” He leaned closer, examining critically. “How much have you had to drink today, Charles?” 

“No more than usual.” His eyes widened, then screwed up with the rest of his face in pain. “Oh fuck fuck fuck Jesus Christ make it stop—” Charles clapped his hands over his ears. “Hank, I can hear _him_. Why can I hear _him_?” 

“Well—” 

“I don’t want him in my head!” he cried, and in the corner Erik stumbled back as if struck. 

“Charles.” Hank seized his hands, pulling them away from his ears. “Charles, listen to me.” 

“I want the dose. Give me the dose. Hank, give me the _fucking_ dose—” 

“I will, Charles, I promise. But please, first—” he tugged at Charles’ hands, pulling them up to rest on Hank’s own temples. “Listen.” Everything Erik had just told him, everything he had learned, JFK, the kids, everything—it hurt, though, he didn’t remember telepathy hurting this much, usually—then Charles pulled his hands away rather violently to shove ineffectually at Hank. His eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. 

“She didn’t want to come?” Oh. Right. Shit. 

“Charles, I’m sorry—” 

“Give me my goddamn serum,” Charles hissed, “before I—” he waved a hand vaguely around his own temple, but Hank got the gist and ran for the fresh doses sitting ready on the counter not far from where he and Erik had sat. He prepared one with shaking hands, rushed back, and found a vein. Charles relaxed as the drug entered his bloodstream. “Give me the dose,” he murmured, “so I can… walk away. Yes. Walk away from him like he walked away from me.” Slowly, shakily, he stood, found his footing, and did so. Hank rubbed at the bridge of his nose as Charles’ fumbling footsteps receded. Unfortunately, this new headache did not go with him. He looked up. In the corner, Erik was slumped against the wall, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, staring at Hank in horror. Rather than sympathy, Hank found it brought up new depths of fury. 

“You want to tell me again how it’s not your fault?” he snarled, and oh—there went his own serum—oh, shit— 

  


Charles splashed his face with cold water and blinked quickly, not daring to look his mirrored self in the eye. It seemed the same shock of telepathy had sobered him in the alcoholic way, too. That happened sometimes. Once he would have sought some biological explanation, but at this point in his life he really didn’t give a shit. 

Satisfied that the serum had taken full effect, he stepped back out of the bathroom only to be nearly bowled over by some kind of silvery blur that came out of nowhere. 

“Whoa, whoa. Whoa there. Sorry, man. You okay?” The silvery blur was talking. That was strange. The only brightly-colored blurs that had ever talked to him before were blue, when he had had too much of… whatever… to see straight and Hank was maybe running late on his dosage. Or when he was younger, and… and. Once upon a time there had been silver blurs that had talked to him, too, silver and red, but those had been glowing in Cerebro and that was back before… he shook his head back to the present. 

“What?” 

“Oh, are you Charles?” That was a different voice. A more reddish blur next to the silver one. Like Cerebro again, almost… sort of. He focused on the eyes first. That was a mistake. The red blur cocked her head to one side. “Are you all right?” Charles blinked and at last the two blurs came into focus. A boy and a girl, the girl redheaded, the boy with silver hair that belied their obviously youthful age. 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am. Who are you?” 

“Pretty much the greatest—” the boy started to say, but the girl talked over him. 

“Wanda and Pietro Maximoff,” she said, smiling politely. “I think you know our father?” _Oh, biblically._ Charles congratulated himself on not actually saying that out loud, only nodding instead. 

“I thought so,” he said grimly. Wanda’s smile faded a little. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but before she could they were all distracted by a series of loud thuds, growls, and metallic crashes coming from the lab down the hall. Charles ran toward the door, but before he could reach it Pietro had already flung it open. For the first time Charles felt an unexpected jolt of great sorrow, suddenly regretting that he could no longer be wildly overjoyed by the sight of such an incredible mutation, could only remember that he _had_ felt that once—then he realized Hank was Beast, and Beast was pinned to the wall by what looked like the legs of several of the lab stools, and one was tightening around his throat as he struggled. 

“ _Erik,_ ” he snapped. Immediately the pieces released as Erik spun to face him, face shifting instantly from fury to horror. As they stood there in silence, staring each other down, Beast growled and sprang at Erik’s turned back. Wanda shrieked and threw up her arms—to shield herself, Charles thought at first, but then the room hummed with power and when Charles looked up Beast was levitating mid-jump in a cloud of red light that streamed from the girl’s outstretched hands. 

Tears sprang up in Charles’ eyes for the second time in about three minutes, though for a completely different reason. This. _This_ was how it felt. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just spent a total of 3 days on the East Coast, which means I adjusted just far enough that I still feel like I got up at 5:30 today but I also feel like I've now stayed up until 3 AM. However, the six-hour flight back from Boston meant lots of writing time, which meant I actually got some chapters done. 
> 
> (I meant to work on Hellfire or my novel. Instead I wound up working on this. I'm going to blame whichever song it was on my phone that gave me the vivid mental image of Charles' entrance in this chapter.)
> 
> Sorry this updates so infrequently. I do now have another chapter queued after this one, though, so. There's that.


	6. postcards from far away

  


vi

  


_December_

_Dear Alexander,_

_Pietro and I are in New York. Not the city, but just a bit upstate, visiting an old friend of our father’s. His family was quite wealthy, so he inherited a beautiful estate; needless to say, we’re having a very good time. Father and his old friend—Charles—hadn’t seen each other in years, so Pietro and I have been leaving them alone to catch up. We’ve done quite a bit of exploring, on the estate and in the surrounding towns on our own a lot. There are some great coffee shops in Westchester. I imagine you’d like that, and the World War II memorabilia in the library. Not to mention the bunker from the 50s—not just a bomb shelter, there’s actually an entire military-style fortified bunker below the house. And just yesterday we discovered a secret passage leading there from the library._

_I like it up here a lot. I like the area. In fact, I’ve been thinking I may give up my place at Georgetown and apply somewhere else, somewhere up here. I think my high school grades might be good enough for Yale... I would be sorry to leave DC behind, of course, and to be far from my mother and dear friends like you, but this trip has made me realize just how much living I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I have so much to learn about the world, and I think the only way I can is by being away from home. _

_Please tell me what you think. You know I value your opinion._

_Yours,_

_Wanda._

  


“Jesus.” Hank was bent nearly double while Pietro ran circles around him with a whooshing sound. Erik stood off to the side, smiling more gently than Charles had seen him look since one particular morning in 1962. “Yeah, not doing that again.” 

“And to think,” said Charles, “you used to be the fast one.” Pietro stopped just long enough to grin widely at them all, then started running again. Hank shook his head. 

“Jesus,” he said again. “I must be getting old or something.” 

“Never as old as I am, my friend,” Charles told him. 

“And I’m older than any of you,” Erik noted, and a sort of shadow passed across his face. There was grey in his hair, Charles realized. It wasn’t so clear indoors, but out in the sunshine it gleamed. He did the mental arithmetic: Erik was nearly forty-five. Which meant—yes. He had now outlived both of his parents by several years. That was a thought both sad and fraught to ponder, so Charles didn’t. Instead he just closed his eyes and turned his face up to that sunshine, breathed in that fresh air. After so many years passed hardly leaving his bedroom, the outdoors made him feel young again. Being outdoors, training the children, Erik not far off… He was beginning to remember again. 

When he opened his eyes, Erik was staring at him with another look he was beginning to remember. As soon as their eyes met he looked away again. For an instant, Charles thought he actually regretted it. 

  


_January_

_Mom,_

_I think I’m going to stay up here in New York if that’s all right with you. This guy Professor Xavier who Dad was friends with in the sixties used to have a school for kids like me up here, and I think he can really help me learn about my talents. Not that I don’t already know a lot about my talents. I’m pretty good at my talents, as I know you’re well aware._

_Wanda has other plans that seem to involve Yale now. I don’t really know about that Ivy League stuff, so you should ask her. In fact, we should probably call you. Sometime soon. We’ll probably do that. Talk things out. I don’t know about Wanda’s plans, but I think you should really let me stay here. Think of it as me going to college. I know you always sort of wanted that even though you gave up on it a while ago._

_Also, Dad says I can. So there._

_Love, Pietro_

  


“Why do you take the serum?” Erik asked one night when he couldn’t seem to keep it in any longer. The children were on the phone with their mother in another room, and he and Charles were alone for the first time in a while. Charles looked up in evident surprise. 

“It lets me walk,” he said, as if it should be obvious. 

“But at the expense of your powers,” said Erik. “If it were me—” 

“Well, it’s not you, is it, Erik?” Charles snapped. “If it were you, not having legs would be no problem, would it? You can just _float._ ” 

“I—” 

“My _powers,_ he says,” Charles muttered. “More like my curse.” Erik frowned. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Oh, you know,” said Charles. “I can control my telepathy perfectly well when my mental state is in good condition, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head. 

“Hank told me you had a very hard time when the war came,” said Erik hesitantly. Charles nodded. 

“When the war came. When the war didn’t come. Sometime in there, it began.” 

“You lost control?” It was a chilling thought. Erik had been unnerved by Charles’ telepathy, certainly—at least he had thought so until the instant he put on the helmet and felt suddenly, horribly alone—but the way he used it, at least with Erik, had only ever been to comfort, and when he did it had always seemed perfectly pinpointed, his control perfect. But an angry, bitter Charles, without that control… 

“They just—they got too _loud_ ,” said Charles, and that was exactly the opposite of what Erik had expected. Guilt washed through him. Of course he thought of how uncontrolled telepathy might damage others—he never thought of how it might damage _Charles_ —“I used to be able to tune them out, everyone, but slowly it just, it just slipped, and I couldn’t do it anymore. And everyone was so _afraid_ , so angry and in so much pain, _so much pain,_ that I—I had to make it stop. The serum…” He shook his head. “It’s the best option, Erik, believe me.” 

Erik was struck by an almost overwhelming desire to run across the room and wrap Charles in his arms and hold him tight and never let go. 

“Surely you could somehow ease back into it?” he asked instead. “Slowly, as slowly as you need to. I know it means a wheelchair, but—Charles, you _loved_ your powers, just as much as you delighted in everyone else’s.” 

“I don’t… I don’t know…” Charles shook his head. “It might—it might not mean a wheelchair. Actually. I—I asked Hank a long time ago to up my dosage, and it’s possible that I could, perhaps, have some use of both my legs and my telepathy, if I took a smaller amount. But…” 

“You could regain your control,” Erik assured him, leaning forward. Charles regarded him, beautifully doubtful. “You could. I believe in you. You are by far the most intelligent person I have ever known, Charles, and the most powerful, and the most altruistic. You have the best intentions, always. Always. You _could_ —” 

“Perhaps.” Charles looked away and swallowed hard. “I. I’ll think about it.” 

“Please do,” said Erik very earnestly. It was strange, being so very earnest. Very earnest used to be Charles’ default state. “I didn’t think I would, but—I miss your thoughts. I miss hearing you, constantly. I know I used to call it annoying, but it’s not really—I was wrong. I miss you.” Charles looked at him and smiled bitterly through what were now quite obvious tears. 

“Well,” he said. “I guess now you know how the helmet felt to me.” 

  


_February_

_Mystique,_

_I know you don’t want to come to New York, but you should._

_—Magneto._

  


“Finally,” was all Hank said, and to Charles’ immense shock hugged him. 

“I’m not stopping _entirely_ ,” he said. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to give up the use of my legs just yet.” 

“No, no, of course not.” Hank shook his head, but couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “We’ll have to do some trial runs, of course, figure out how low to go on the dosage to find just the right balance.” 

“A scientific experiment?” Charles smiled. “Count me in.” Suddenly Hank looked fully ten years younger. 

“Absolutely,” he said. “ _Professor._ ” Charles rolled his eyes. 

“Oh, I really don’t think—” 

“Nope. No argument. Professor X is back. It’s staying. Get used to it.” He was practically dancing across the lab. “Maybe think about opening the school again? War’s over. Plenty of young mutants out there waiting to be found.” 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Charles laughed. “I’ll tell you what, Hank, I’ll open the school again when _you_ stop using the serum.” Hank froze. 

“Um—I hope you don’t stick to that,” he said quietly. “You’re an excellent teacher, Charles, you ought to be able to go back to it at _some_ point in your lifetime.” 

“Oh, Hank.” Charles shook his head. “Mutant and proud, remember?” Hank nearly dropped a syringe and had to fumble with it for a moment so it didn’t fall and shatter. 

“I really don’t,” he muttered. 

  


_March_

_Erik,_

_No._

  


Charles walked into the front hall to find Erik standing there looking at a postcard, eyebrows furrowed in a familiar look of frustration. From his angle Charles could see the picture on the front of the card: _Beautiful Bavaria_ , it said in curling script, against a backdrop of forested mountains. 

“Who’s in Bavaria of all places?” he asked. Erik jumped. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t realize you were there.” Charles drew nearer. 

“Bavaria?” he said again. Erik shook his head. 

“I should just go and get her,” he muttered. “She’ll see reason once she’s here.” 

“Oh.” Charles sighed. “Raven.” 

“Well, you want her here, don’t you?” said Erik, folding the postcard and sticking it into his pocket. “Might as well just drag her.” 

“Oh, no,” said Charles. “Erik, please don’t. There’s no _making_ Raven do anything when she doesn’t want to, and nor does either of us have any right to try.” Erik blinked. 

“That’s a rather different perspective than I recall,” he said. Charles shrugged. 

“Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” he said. “Raven’s a force of nature unto herself. I just have to believe she’ll come home when she’s ready. I spent more than ten years trying to force her to conform to my wishes, and what did it get me but abandoned?” 

“But you’re her brother,” said Erik. “And besides, that was my fault. I took her away.” Charles shook his head. They stood there a moment, staring at each other. Then, somehow, with neither sure who started it, _someone_ kissed the other, and either way the end result was the same. 

_Stop being so polite,_ rang through Charles’ mind. _I know you could be in here if you tried._ If a mental voice could become choked and—verklempt, he remembered that word from Erik’s mind long ago—Charles was sure his did at that moment, so that when he reached out and touched Erik’s mind, all that he could seem to project was, 

_I missed you so much._

  


_April_

_Alex,_

_First of all, old friend, I must apologize and apologize and apologize for my lack of communication these past few years. Indeed, all the apologies in the world, I think, could not begin to suffice as atonement for the way I disappeared from your life, and everyone’s life, nearly as soon as you left for the war. I am fallen, far from the man I once was, the professor you knew. You saw the beginning of my decline before you left for Vietnam, but I fear I must admit since then I reached depths that I doubt anyone could have imagined of me back then. But slowly, finally, I am beginning to recuperate, a process first catalyzed by a visit from Erik and his children. (Erik has children. Long-lost, long-estranged ones, of course, but children nonetheless. I was as surprised as anyone, himself included.)_

_Erik tells me he’s seen you in the last two years, and that you’re safe, well, a war hero, and happily married now. Indeed I have since come to know a bit more detail, through the use of a renovated Cerebro—I hope you don’t mind any intrusion, as I mean only to congratulate you and Jennifer on your son! I imagine raising Scott will keep you firmly in one place for a while, but once he’s a little older I would like to extend an open invitation to bring him (and of course yourselves) to visit any time you like. It is of course my hope that your son will eventually give you reason to, and that I, and Hank, and even Erik, can someday train him as once we trained you._

_I hope you can forgive my years of silence, Alex, and I hope we can return to our old state of friendship and regular communication. I should very much like to know all there is to know about your life and your family, and I should especially like to find out through conventional means. For what I do know, I am so enormously happy for you, and so very, very proud._

_Your friend, always,_

_Charles Xavier_

  



	7. back to the world we had

  


vii

  


As more bitter years had dragged on at a painful snail’s pace, time now seemed to move rather more like Pietro. Between the boy’s powers and his father’s it was easy to begin rebuilding the house, and to fortify it against the eventual onslaught of many, many multitalented children. For all Hank continued resolutely to take the serum, still Charles forced himself to hope. There was always hope. 

He started reading newspapers again, listening to the radio and watching television, tuning back into the outside world. It was exciting at first, but after the first few occasions where attempts at discussion of some story or another elicited an uncomfortable silence from Erik, Charles realized perhaps it was best they stayed away from politics. For a while, at least. Things would change eventually. For now—at least when she was around—there was always Wanda to talk to for a more current and far, far more moderate perspective on things. 

Yale treated her well. She was no fighter, not restless like her father or brother; despite the enormity of her power, she was a gentle soul without a hint of a malicious streak. The house was always much more peaceful when Wanda was home. Indeed they all began to think of it as _home_ , home for an ersatz little family—but what else had it ever been? 

The twins’ mother came to visit in the second year, around the holidays. It was awkward, but not at all in the way Charles had expected. Rather than be confused or repulsed by… everything, Magda Maximoff simply took it all in stride, making Charles and Erik the uncomfortable ones. The twins were delighted; Hank stood off to the side as the only impartial observer. 

He laughed himself half-sick once she had left over something she had said earlier. By then Charles was to the point of rolling his eyes, Erik to smirking, but at the moment Magda had remarked that the kids seemed to like Charles a lot more than any other stepfather they’d had, both had just frozen in place. 

“Stepdad?” said Pietro, then, shattering the tension. “He’s not our stepdad. In what way is he our stepdad?” 

“Do you _really_ need me to explain it?” Wanda had asked, incredulous. “Seriously? It’s 1978, Pietro.” Now she sat curled on one end of a couch she shared with her brother, regarding Hank doubtfully. “It’s really not that funny,” she said. 

“No,” said Hank, “you didn’t know them in the ‘60s when they went all over the country adopting a truckload of teenagers. It really is.” 

"We did not—" Charles started to say, but broke off and, after a moment's consideration, made Hank laugh even harder when he decided that "no, he's right." 

“Was that true?” he asked Wanda later, in private. 

“About you being the best stepfather?” Wanda smiled. “It’s not like Mom had a _lot_ of boyfriends when we were younger, but yes, of course you’re head and shoulders above the competition.” 

“I doubt you mean literally.” Charles laughed. Wanda stood to measure the tops of their heads with her hand, and he batted it away—it was a well-established fact, always one of great amusement to Pietro, that Charles and Wanda were the same height. 

“Of course,” she said again. “I prefer here to anywhere. Even school. Here’s the only place I can use my powers, and—and not fear them.” 

“Did you fear your powers?” Charles asked, a wave of sympathy rising in him. “Why?” 

“Yes,” said Wanda. “For years. Because—well, it was hard to control them, and if I wasn’t thinking about it I would make bad, or just—just very big things happen, without meaning to. So I just suppressed it instead.” Charles nodded. Erik had told him of their first meeting, but he had not yet heard it expressed in Wanda’s own words. 

“I’m sorry for that,” he told her now. “I… was much the same, once. When my powers first appeared, when I was nine years old, I truly thought I had gone insane.” Wanda nodded. 

“Pietro could always control his,” she said. “His speed, it… it didn’t show up until we were twelve. By then I’d already had my powers for a year, and I thought it was all just coincidences. Then one night he dragged me out of bed and out to the high school track to show me what he could do, and I realized mine were real too, but… I had to control it.” She sighed. “It’s not like that with him. His powers won’t hurt anyone unless he uses them to.” 

“Nor will Erik’s, or Hank’s, or—” he almost said it, but couldn’t. “There are physical mutations, like Hank’s speed and strength,” 

“Or Mystique shapeshifting!” said Wanda. Charles knew he winced, but he kept talking before she could question. 

“And then there are the kind of gifts your father and brother have, that only work when they deliberately use them, or—well,” he amended, because that wasn’t always true of Erik, was it, “they can be controlled much more easily. Ours are different.” He sighed. “You know, Wanda, until you came along I had only ever met one other person with psionic powers, and she… well, we did not get along.” 

When he sank into bed a while later it was to lie in the dark for a few moments before Erik, who until then had been doing an excellent mental impression of sleep, rolled over to rest his head on Charles’ shoulder. 

“Hello,” he whispered, surprised. 

“You should have been the one with kids, you know,” said Erik. 

“Why? I didn’t sleep around _that_ much.” That elicited a low rumble of silent laughter in the body shaking against his. 

“No, you’re… you’d be better at it. You are now.” 

“Well, it’s not what happened.” 

“No.” Erik was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Just another thing that should have happened differently.” 

“We never talk about those things,” Charles murmured. “Perhaps we should.” 

“Do we need to?” Erik asked doubtfully. “I thought everything was all right.” 

“I suppose so,” said Charles, and neither said anything else for quite a while. Slowly Erik’s breathing evened, and his mental presence quieted again. “But is it?” Charles asked the ceiling, quietly, once he knew that this time the sleep was real. 

  


Being with Erik had been an easy habit to fall back into. Too easy, Charles sometimes thought, but he had always been easily seduced by shortcuts, and simply ignoring whatever might still be wrong was a very pleasant one most nights. 

The stories that headlined the newspapers lately were innocuous, speaking little of any earth-gripping tension beyond the usual background noise of the Cold War. Sometimes, when he first glanced over them in the early mornings before Erik was awake, Charles found himself wondering if it would be different if there was some more obvious threat looming on the horizon. The Erik he had known in 1962 had been constantly restless and in truth needlessly paranoid, always looking for an enemy to throw himself at, whether Shaw, the U.S. government, or humanity in general. That was what came of a life seeking revenge, Charles had supposed, and hoped he would eventually grow out of it—but then Erik killed Shaw, and that hope bled out on the beach. 

Now, with the world so quiet, it was impossible to know whether the outward peace that marked the greatest change in Erik came from the maturity of middle age, or just from the absence of an immediate war to fight. Even glancing through his mind yielded no useful hint. Part of Charles hoped that peace would never be tested, but another part—sometimes he thought a greater one—knowing it surely would be, was anxious to find out. 

  


“I was thinking,” said Wanda one morning. “You said you had met only one person with psionic powers before? Well, I know one. Emma’s a telepath.” Charles frowned. 

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly. You know Emma Frost?” 

“Of course,” said Wanda. 

“Well, she _was_ the one I met.” 

“Really?” said Wanda, surprised. “I guess that makes sense. But I would think you would have gotten along. She was the only responsible adult in the Brotherhood, it seemed like.” Charles chuckled. 

“Of course she was.” 

“I’d think you would get along, though,” she said again. “With Emma. You know. You’re alike in some ways.” Charles shrugged. 

“It was a different time,” he said, because he couldn’t think what else to say. Wanda was so innocent, in a way; she had no idea all the things that had happened in the past. “We were all different people. Things were…” 

“Different?” Wanda suggested dryly. Charles laughed. 

“Exactly.” 

Speak of the devil, as it happened; a few weeks later there was a knock at the front door, and Charles opened it to find an icy-blonde woman in white standing on the front porch. 

“Emma?” said Erik incredulously from over his shoulder before he could speak. “What are you doing here?” 

“Joining you,” she said, examining her perfectly-manicured nails as if the prospect didn’t actually interest her all that much. Charles and Erik glanced at each other in confusion. 

“Where’s Mystique?” Erik asked. 

“Not coming.” Emma looked at Charles. “Well, hello there. It’s been a while.” 

“Er—yes,” said Charles. “Why isn’t she coming?” 

“Who knows why she does what she does?” Emma sighed, and for some reason that made him feel better than any other explanation he had heard. “Well.” She swept past them into the house and looked around. “Oh! Erik, it is as nice as you always said.” 

“Excuse me,” said Charles. “What did you mean, you’re joining us?” 

“Well, where else am I to go?” Emma shrugged. “Mystique ran off god knows where, and he and his progeny have been holed up here for over a year now. I supposed I might as well come here too.” 

“Progeny?” said Erik, tone dry but amused. Charles was less so. 

“Considering this is my house,” he said, “did you consider it might be wise to _ask_?” Emma looked at him in surprise. He wondered if she had genuinely never had to ask for such a permission before. 

“Of course,” she said after a moment. “May I join you here, Professor Xavier? I know this is a school, or was once, and I do think myself fairly well-equipped to teach.” 

_Charles,_ Erik thought, and nothing else but a sense of pleading. 

“Certainly,” said Charles to Emma. “Since you asked so politely. Though it’s not a school at the moment, I hope it may become one again in the near future.” 

“Thank you,” said Emma, the picture of cordiality, and psychically Erik echoed the sentiment. 

_It’s not because you asked,_ Charles told him. _It’s because Wanda has told me that Emma was the most responsible adult in your Brotherhood._ He had expected that bit of mental frankness might turn Erik’s good mood sour, but instead he felt a wave of affection and delight. It was so sweet it lifted his own spirits inexorably, and he found himself smiling. Then the children ran in to pounce on Emma, ruffling the seemingly never-ruffled, and the smile only grew. 

  


The last time Erik was in this room, it was a high-ceilinged study full of young mutants watching a speech on television by a man who was now long-dead. He had held a gun in his hand—idly at first, his grip gradually tightening as he listened to the President speak and realized the day they had all been dreading was coming soon. He glanced at Charles, now, and was struck by the memory of him that day, still young and unburdened as he gazed intently at the screen, face creased in an uncharacteristically serious look of concern. That look lingered now, but now it was normal. 

“If I might ask,” said Emma, “where is your brainwave-enhancing device located?” Charles looked askance at Erik—not because he misunderstood, he knew, but because he still didn’t trust her. It rankled a bit, but he supposed there was nothing he could do about it but stay quiet and hoped Charles would come around on his own. That was his attitude toward a lot of things lately. “I only ask because I know you had one… once,” Emma added, skillfully skating around the topic of where exactly they had all been at the time, “and we built one as well back in ’63, so I’m curious as to any functional differences between them.” 

“Oh,” said Charles, glancing at Erik again, rather less happily. “Of course. It’s in the basement. Used to be part of my stepfather’s bunker.” He stood, and they followed him down several flights of stairs, along a metal-walled hall—Erik had never felt so secure—and up to an enormous door with a metal X on it. 

“Subtle,” said Erik. 

“Quiet, you,” said Charles, and looked at the door with some consternation. “It’s not working—oh,” he broke off, voice dropping lower and quieter. “Of course.” He crouched down slightly until his eye level matched whatever sensor it was that read the iris, intoned, “Welcome, Professor,” and opened the doors. It took Erik a moment to realize someone—Hank—had obviously built the technology to accommodate a wheelchair, and it was a blow to the gut—but Charles continued on as if nothing was wrong, passing ( _walking_ ) through the doors and into an enormous round room whose design Erik recognized instantly. This Cerebro was different, with the operation center in the very center of the sphere, which dipped away from the long bridge beneath their feet. They drew up to the little platform that held the controls and Emma looked around curiously. 

“A spherical design,” she observed. “Perhaps that would be more effective. But how do the waves refract?” 

“I beg your pardon?” said Charles. 

“My Prism worked as an amplifier by refracting telepathic waves through it,” Emma explained, “hence the name.” 

“Prism. Of course.” Charles smiled thinly. “Like a diamond.” 

“Precisely,” said Emma. “I think Erik could better explain how it worked, though.” She spun slowly in place at the center of the sphere, looking up at the structural beams. “I wonder if, perhaps, you could combine this design with the refractory properties of Prism to make a machine twice as powerful?” 

“Far more than that,” said Hank from the doorway. “I imagine such a machine might see not a linear but an exponential growth in power. And more importantly, reach.” 

“We could use the satellite dish,” said Erik suddenly, still lost in nostalgia but having reached a useful point. 

“And, what, connect people’s innermost thoughts through to the television?” said Charles dryly. “I can’t imagine _you’d_ enjoy that.” 

“It doesn’t have to work like that,” Erik retorted. “Satellite—oh, come on, surely you know how they work, you have, what, five doctorates?” 

“Hardly,” said Charles. “…Three. No, I suppose I see how the dish might help.” He smiled at Erik, then. “Can you still move it?” 

“ _Can_ I?” Erik laughed. 

“I’m going to assume that’s intended as a yes.” 

“Why don’t we find out?” said Erik, and seized Charles’ hand to pull him back into the study and outside before he could protest. He could feel his tension through the grasp—Charles was usually quite demonstrative in his affection, but since Emma had been here he’d been rather more self-conscious about it. Erik could understand that. Everyone was uncomfortable around Emma, himself included: it was something about the constant knowing smirk she wore. 

The satellite dish still stood in the same place it had, facing the same direction he had turned it. It took no effort at all to move it today, not with the brightest corner of his memory standing beside him. 

Here they were again. All was well. 

  



	8. in an earlier round

  


viii

  


Between Erik’s powers and Pietro’s, Hank’s and Emma’s expertise, Charles’ direction as the actual homeowner, and Wanda’s assistance once she came home for the break, the end of summer saw the house, grounds, and above all Cerebro completely renovated. 

At some point in the course of going through the attic (which now housed several large bedrooms, ideal as dormitories) Wanda had come across a shoebox full of old photographs. She thumbed through them quietly at first, smiling to herself at picture after picture of a very, _very_ young Charles and a blonde girl it took her a few moments to realize was an even younger Mystique. Then she turned over one of Charles in an academic cap and gown—dated 1962, when her eyes skimmed across the back—and nearly dropped the stack. 

“Oh my god,” she said. “Pietro, come look at this.” 

“What?” He was beside her in a flash as usual. She held it up. “Holy shit. That’s Dad!” 

“Wearing a _wetsuit_ ,” said Wanda. 

“Oh, you found that box, did you?” Charles’ head popped up above a bookcase a few yards away. “Has no one ever told you how I met your father?” 

“No,” they said in unison. 

“And no one’s going to,” came Erik’s voice from somewhere else in the attic. Charles rolled his eyes. 

“Well,” he began, “he nearly drowned trying to chase down a submarine off the coast of Miami—” 

“ _What?_ ” said Pietro as Wanda idly returned to the pictures. Dad again, dressed more normally now—at least, normal aside from the fact that he was wearing a purple turtleneck. Dad grinning Pietro’s same sharklike grin, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Dad in a leather jacket and young, blonde Mystique in a very short miniskirt. Dad silhouetted against the Washington Monument. Dad and Charles standing next to an old car, Charles smiling brightly, Dad looking dour. Dad driving the same car, not looking at the camera. Dad drinking a beer. Dad flipping the camera the bird. 

“Who took these?” she called, though she knew the answer, as she held up that last one for Pietro to see. He took one glance and went into paroxysms of laughter. 

“I did, mostly,” said Charles. 

“Figures,” Wanda replied, continuing to go through them. “How did you take this one?” She held it up. Charles looked. 

“I didn’t,” he said. “Erik was levitating the camera over his own head. He was quite pleased with himself, as I recall.” 

“You weren’t exactly unimpressed,” Erik called. Wanda smiled, but it slipped away as she paused at blonde Mystique and a youthful Hank, briefly wondering how _they_ could ever have been friends, and flipped that one over to find Charles once more in the picture, his arm around a different young woman, this one with brown hair. Something about her was very familiar. “Who’s this?” she asked, holding it up as well. 

“Moira,” Charles supplied after peering at it for a long moment through a gap between books on the shelf. “She was our CIA liaison.” 

“Why’d you have a CIA liaison?” Pietro asked, naturally, and the story continued. The CIA. That rang a bell, too, but a few moments’ concentration couldn’t seem to come up with anything, so Wanda set that photo aside as well. 

“How old were you in these, Charles?” she asked, thumbing through a section in the box full of photos of Hank, Mystique, and a bunch of people she didn’t know. They all looked about the age she was now. 

“Twenty-four.” He wasn’t so much older then, either. It was weird to think about. 

“Your hairline’s receded a lot,” Wanda observed. Now Charles came out from behind the bookshelf entirely. 

“Excuse me?” he said. Wanda shrugged. 

“Sorry. I’m just saying.” 

“It’s true,” came Erik’s voice from a direction completely different from last time. 

“Thanks for your input,” Charles called back, and they heard a low, affectionate laugh echo through the attic. The moment passed, and Wanda went back to looking through the photos, startling a little when suddenly one of them showed Charles and blonde Mystique standing in front of the very house they were in right now. From there all the photos were in places she could pinpoint, rooms she had sat in. Less explicably, the people in most of the pictures took to wearing identical gray tracksuits: a redheaded boy wearing a contraption that made him look a little like a flying squirrel (Sean, Charles supplied, briefly sorrowful, when she asked), Charles and Hank standing outside with the satellite dish in the background, Hank and a _very_ good-looking blond guy (Alex, apparently). Blonde Mystique, blonde Mystique and Charles, Dad in one of the tracksuits… 

“Whoa,” she said as she came to the last photograph in the box. “What are these outfits?” 

“Really cool is what they are,” said Pietro, looking over her shoulder. “Man, you guys were young.” 

“Is that… Hank?” Wanda asked, pointing to a furry blue man dressed like all the others. Charles nodded. “What happened? I’d been wondering. Because, the first day we were here—” 

“Ah. Yes.” Charles winced. “Hank… he attempted to make a cure for his mutation, which is of course impossible, and so rather than cure him it did… that.” 

“Then how does he look—you know—now?” Pietro asked. 

“He takes a serum,” Charles explained, “not unlike the one I use to walk.” 

“Oh, right,” said Wanda. She had heard them talk about the serum only in passing, and was still rather confused on the details and circumstances. “And why can’t you walk without the serum? What happened?” 

“An unfortunate accident,” said Charles firmly just as Erik finally emerged from the mess, dusting off his hands on his trouser legs. “An unfortunate accident that took place shortly after this photograph was taken.” 

“You don’t have to protect them, you know,” said Erik quietly. Charles looked up at him. 

“What?” 

“They’re adults. There’s no reason to sugarcoat it.” Their father looked down at them very seriously. “It’s my fault Charles would be in a wheelchair without the serum. I was shot at, and in deflecting the bullets I accidentally sent one into his spine.” Wanda shuddered involuntarily. “This,” Erik continued, “understandably, distracted me from what I had been doing, which was attempting to destroy both the American and Russian naval fleets off Cuba after they fired on us for being mutants.” Wanda blinked, and she and Pietro looked at each other. Suddenly a lot of what they had heard during their time with the Brotherhood made a lot more sense. 

“Or for lifting a submarine out of the ocean and floating it through the air from the landing gear of a highly-advanced jet completely unknown to either military,” Charles muttered. 

“Same thing,” said Erik. 

“No, it’s not.” Suddenly the atmosphere around them was very tense. Wanda instinctively shrank away from it. Her father and Charles stared at each other for a moment. Then Erik said, 

“Let’s not talk about this right now.” 

“Fine with me,” said Charles, and turned back to the bookshelf. Wanda looked back and forth between them once more, her stomach twisting. 

“Where did the outfits come from, though?” Pietro asked, apparently oblivious. “I kinda want one.” 

“You’d have to ask Hank,” said Charles distantly. “He made them. Perhaps he could again.” 

  


Now, as they walked down the gleaming metal-paneled halls through the basement, it was with Wanda and Pietro dressed in suits that greatly resembled those in the photo, though in different colors: hers scarlet, his silver. Hank, more than Charles, kept glancing at them with barely-concealed delight. 

“The X-Men are at it again,” he finally said. 

“The what now?” said Pietro, as Charles groaned and said, 

“Hank…” 

“X-Men?” Erik looked most amused. “Where did _that_ name come from?” 

“Moira made a joke, and Hank latched onto it,” said Charles. 

“Well, it suits,” Hank put in. “Professor X and his X-Men.” 

“That would be great, yes,” Charles retorted, “if I _wanted_ to be called Professor X.” 

“No, I like it,” said Wanda. “Who came up with Professor X, then?” There was a pause, in which a look of deep sorrow passed over Charles’ face. 

“Oh,” he said softly. “Do you know, I had forgotten.” Wanda looked askance at her father, who mouthed _Mystique._ Luckily, just then they reached the Cerebro doors. The scanner matched to Charles’ eyes and the doors slid open. Wanda looked around, taking in the metal panels, the soft blue lights along the bridge, the sleek lines of the contraption itself. “Look, Erik,” said Charles, holding up the headpiece. “It’s a helmet that looks even more ridiculous than yours.” It was clearly intended as a joke, but Wanda didn’t understand it and Erik didn’t laugh. Charles shrugged and lowered the device onto his head. 

“About your hair,” said Hank slowly, with a tension in his tone that let slip a bit of barely-suppressed mirth. Clearly this was a discussion they had had before. Then his face slipped into a mask of utter shock as Charles said, 

“Well, I’m told my hairline is receding as it is. Perhaps it’s time.” Hank gaped. 

“Um,” said Erik. 

“Tread carefully,” said Charles, fiddling with the dials. “There are quite a lot of couches in this house to choose from.” Erik snorted. Then the machine hummed to life and all around them appeared billions of glittering white lights, with some red ones interspersed throughout. It was curious, the way they projected on the walls of Cerebro: like they stood at the center of the globe, looking out at the continents from within. For a moment, the glow was all around them. Then the lights everywhere but most of North America and very westernmost Europe and Africa flickered out. 

“What the hell…?” said Erik softly. Charles frowned. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps its reach is limited somehow?” 

“I can’t imagine…” Hank stepped over to look at the readings over Charles’ shoulder. “No, the machine is at full power. The range _should_ be global.” 

“Then what’s wrong?” Erik asked. 

“Perhaps I should try,” Emma suggested. Charles wavered for some reason, but Erik nodded encouragingly and after another reluctant moment Charles removed the helmet from his head and handed it to Emma. The lights flickered and went out; then, as she took his place at the controls, wearing the helmet, they came back on. The limited radius quickly spread to cover the entire world once more. Wanda looked around, awed. Not only were the walls all covered once more, but the lights seemed brighter, more vibrant. 

“That’s strange,” said Hank. “I can’t imagine why…” 

“I can.” Emma closed her eyes for a moment, and the world spun wildly until it stopped with them facing the East Coast. A small group of lights drew forward into prominence out of the tangle that was southeastern New York—six red lights that coalesced in the void before them into small human forms. 

“Whoa,” said Pietro, regarding his own red hologram. Then, with a wave of Emma’s hand, five of the lights slipped out of focus once more, leaving only the small form that glowed most weakly. Charles rotated slowly before them as Emma gazed at him intensely. 

“Ouch,” said the real Charles. “Be careful.” His voice echoed through the light-Charles spinning in the void. 

“Ah,” was all Emma said in reply. “I see. Your telepathy is weakened.” Charles, both real and telepathic, sighed and rather wilted. 

“The serum,” he said, his voice suddenly much older and more tired than usual. “Of course. It leaves me with only limited use of my powers…” 

“What serum?” Emma frowned as she powered down Cerebro. 

“Oh, please,” said Charles. “As if you haven’t read all our minds to know exactly _what serum._ ” 

“In fact I have not,” Emma replied coldly. “Erik made it clear I should not.” 

“…Oh.” Charles glanced at Erik, who looked away. “I see. The serum… It gives me my legs, you see, but at the cost of my full powers.” 

“Well,” said Emma, setting down the helmet, “I’m afraid as long as you keep using it, limiting your powers means limiting Cerebro.” Charles nodded. 

“I see,” he said again, quieter. Erik set a hand on his shoulder, which he covered with his own. Wanda glanced at Pietro, jerking her head back toward another part of the basement. 

“Want to see something that isn’t depressing?” said Pietro at that cue, which was honestly about as tactful as Pietro could be. The adults—well, the older adults—all looked at each other. 

“Um—all right?” said Hank. “Where is this something?” 

“The bunker. Come on.” They all took the same pace at first, but as soon as the doors opened Pietro vanished. The rest caught up with him a few moments later, to find he had already set up the wooden blocks all around the enormous room, blocks that ranged in size from a fist to a table, and was sitting on one of the chair-sized ones twiddling his thumbs. “Took you long enough,” he said. 

“What’s going on here?” Erik asked, looking around. 

“We’re going to play tag,” Wanda explained, unable to stop herself grinning almost as wickedly as Pietro. To him she said, “you’re it.” Pietro grinned back and was at her side in an instant, tapping her shoulder to pass off the designation before he became a silver blur again. 

Wanda tossed a block into his path. He dodged it. Then another, then another, then finally she managed to aim one just right so it actually hit him, sending him tumbling across the bunker floor. They heard Charles gasp somewhere behind them, but Pietro rolled gracefully into a leap and was up again, racing around the room trying to get to her. 

There was barely time to think about what she did—Wanda moved on instinct, setting up a series of progressively taller blocks between the direction Pietro was coming from and where she presently stood, sending him up them like stairs and flying over her as she ducked to avoid him. He flipped in the air, kicked off the wall, and launched back towards her. She rolled out of the way and managed to catch him in midair, surrounding him with a red glow and hanging on. 

“Pietro, play nice with your sister,” said Erik dryly as Pietro began to move within Wanda’s cloud, legs pumping uselessly until somehow, even stuck as he was, he found the friction to build up the momentum to start running in circles, spinning a circumference around her and dragging her by its red radius. Slowly he climbed higher until Wanda lifted off the ground, floating toward the ceiling—Pietro nearly hit it—then he took a sharp downward turn and dragged her toward the wall again. As soon as his hand struck it the red cloud burst and he was off again, zooming around the room. Wanda remained near the ceiling, floating, waiting. Pietro reached up for her ankle once, but she kicked him off. He ran up the wall, but she drew up one of the smaller wooden blocks and tossed it at him. He stuck out his tongue before he fell, twisting in midair to land hard on his feet but still keep running. She could see it, though, as probably no one else would be able: he was tiring. With the shadow of a thought Wanda tossed a block his way and he tripped on it, sprawling. Victorious, she floated down from the ceiling. 

Suddenly she was sprawling, too, or flying across the bunker in the instants after Pietro slammed into her. Someone screamed—not her—but she managed to stop herself just before she hit the back wall. There was a definite bone-rattling jolt, but not as bad as it would have been: the psionic energy provided a nice cushion, letting her land softly and bounce cleanly back down to stand on the floor. Pietro zoomed up beside her. 

“Are you okay?” he hissed, very concerned (for Pietro). 

“Absolutely,” said Wanda. They turned to the four adults at the other end of the room and bowed in unison. Then Pietro grabbed her arm, the other hand on the back of her neck, and Wanda blinked and they were standing right before them. 

“That was…” Hank started to say, but stopped. 

“Cool?” Pietro suggested. 

“ _Terrifying,_ ” said Charles. “And incredibly reckless. And—” 

“Certainly in line with how we last used this bunker,” said Hank. 

“True.” Charles nodded. “But that was with adult supervision.” 

“So was this,” said Wanda. “I’m an adult.” 

“So am I,” said Pietro, “we are literally the _exact same age_ —” 

“I’m technically older—” 

“And in a dire situation,” Charles added firmly, ignoring them both. “There is no need to put yourselves in _unnecessary_ danger.” 

“They’re mutants,” Erik pointed out. “Living, for us, can be an unnecessary danger.” 

“Not in this day and age!” 

“Well,” Erik shrugged, “you may not like it, but I think they have the right idea. You’re certainly not using the bunker for anything else.” 

“It was ideal for training Alex,” said Hank. 

“Alex’s powers were much more volatile, and he had far less control,” Charles insisted. 

“And so will other students, one day.” 

“It’s not as if you’re using it for anything else,” Emma put in, finally, looking around the bunker with cool interest. “You could easily outfit it to provide a space where the students could train together rather than against each other. This one has quite a talent with machines.” She nodded towards Hank, who looked shocked for a moment at receiving the compliment before he smiled brightly. 

“You could call it the Unnecessary Danger Room if it’d make you feel better,” Pietro put in. Erik snickered. Charles gave them both a look, but after a moment he relented and smiled a little. 

“The Unnecessary Danger Room,” he said. “I rather like it.” Now he looked from Wanda to Pietro and back again with more a look of pride than of concern. “Emma’s right, I think—it would be better if you could learn to fight as a team rather than just sparring against each other. Still, what you’ve just demonstrated is very impressive. Wanda, has your power truly become entirely psychic?” 

“Well, I guess I don’t have to say things out loud anymore.” She shrugged. “And I barely had to concentrate.” 

“Remarkable.” Charles shook his head, smiling. “You’ve both advanced so much since you’ve been here, it’s truly… I’m so proud of you both.” 

“We all are,” Erik put in. “That was quite an impressive display, both of you. Well done.” Wanda could feel Pietro at her side practically vibrating in excitement. It wasn’t often they received such praise from their father, and he especially seemed to crave it. 

“Plans,” said Hank, breaking the mood. “We should start on plans. You other three with actual combat abilities, let’s start brainstorming.” 

“Yes, go on,” said Charles when they all looked to him for a final word, father and children alike. “I think I have some rather more literal _brainstorming_ to do.” 

  


“Obviously technology hasn’t progressed yet to nearly the point it needs to for all of what I _want_ to put in to work,” Hank was saying, while Pietro was trying very hard and very obviously not to laugh. 

“Yes,” said Erik dryly, “that is indeed unfortunate. As to working with what we have here in the year 1979—” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Hank smoothed a hand across the rather messy blueprints spread out on the table between them all. “Okay. Erik, I like your idea of randomly-firing turrets placed at intervals in the walls. Pietro, I _don’t_ like your idea of using live ammunition in said turrets, but Wanda, I _do_ like your idea of using a variety of substances in said _non-lethal_ ammunition to play to different strengths and, ah, weaknesses.” He glanced at Erik, who smiled grimly. 

“What about the shifting floors?” said Wanda. 

“A little impractical, but we could probably figure out something with hydraulics.” Hank cast his gaze over the blueprints, trying to filter out the more ridiculous things people had sketched or written—not as hard as it might seem, since most of the worst offenders were in Pietro’s near-illegible scrawl. “This thing about bars coming out of the walls—also impractical, but I like the concept. Erik, any thoughts?” 

“Well,” said Erik slowly, “I suppose—if you build them into the farthest walls on the edge of the foundation, they could extend out a ways into the ground. Then, between motion-sensors and hydraulics…” 

Charles watched from the doorway, eyes more on Hank than anyone else, hoping that someday soon he would give up the serum so that new people might have a use for this training room they were dreaming up. But then, he wasn’t setting such a good example, after all—but that was different. For himself, he could wait. 

_Cerebro_ could wait. He was fine with the reach he had; it was no different from what had been available to him through the older versions. For now… 

“Hank,” he called, catching everyone’s attention. “About my hair.” 

  



	9. tell her that I miss our little talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not being very careful with the timeline here (it's not like the movies are, though I am trying to stick mostly to dates as suggested by the trilogy), but as of this chapter at least a year has passed since the last.
> 
> Also, Pietro is maybe not always the most tactful or politically correct. It's the 80s. Just a warning.

  


ix

  


“Found anyone yet?” Erik asked the question every day as Charles came up to breakfast, and every day the answer was the same. 

“Not yet.” It had been the same for nearly a year now. There was no one spectacularly promising, at least; no one dangerous. No one so extreme in their powers or lack of control that Charles would have to break his own challenge with Hank just to help them. He fully expected to find someone like that eventually, even soon, but so far none had stood out. Mostly, once the one sweep was done, he spent the rest of his time checking in on people he knew. Alex had two sons now, growing fast, Scott and Alex Junior. Neither had manifested yet, though Charles anticipated it would come to pass for Scott, at least, within the next two to five years. He was rapidly nearing that age. 

Charles didn’t expect the recent… _quiet_ , of the world, to last forever either. With that thought he glanced at Erik, back turned to the room, humming over the stove. He looked so peaceful, for a man who used to say… 

By ducking he only narrowly avoided being knocked over by the silver blur that arrived just then with a mumbled “morning” garbled by the piece of toast he had just liberated from Charles’ plate. A sharp mental tug stopped Pietro in his tracks, and he looked around guiltily, rendered unable to speak politely by his mouth still full of toast. 

“Good morning to you too, Pietro,” said Charles. Pietro swallowed the last of the stolen food and gave him a wide grin. “In a good mood, are we?” 

“S’ my last day of being an only child,” said Pietro, as if that somehow explained it. “So it’s my duty to Wanda to make sure you’re both _really_ happy she’s finally coming home to calm things down.” 

“Oh, we’d be looking forward to her homecoming regardless,” said Erik dryly, in such a way as to make the otherwise-innocuous sentence a pointed jab. 

“Thanks, Dad,” said Pietro in a more or less identical tone. “I’m going to go for a run before we have to go get her. See ya.” And with that he was off again, kitchen door slamming behind him. Charles just sighed. It would be good to have Wanda home, indeed. 

“Have you looked for Mystique at all?” Erik asked, completely out of the blue. 

“What?” 

“With Cerebro.” 

“I—no, I haven’t.” It surprised him, a little, when he thought about it. The last time he’d had Cerebro, not a day had gone by he hadn’t checked on her first thing, watching from a distance and imagining all the things he would have liked to say—never saying them aloud in any form, of course, because he had made her a promise, after all. 

“Would you?” Erik asked now, forehead creasing a bit between his furrowing eyebrows. “I haven’t heard from her in a while. Wouldn’t mind knowing where she is.” There were more lines on both their faces, these days; Charles supposed they had indeed hit middle age. 

“Does this have anything to do with the dreams you’ve been having?” he asked, pitching his voice lower even though they were alone—one never really knew where Pietro might be at any given moment, even if he’d said he was going out. In return, Erik offered only a look of utter confusion. 

“What dreams?” Of course—he didn’t remember. Charles saw it now. Most people didn’t. He remembered all of his own dreams, of course, but it had taken him years to realize that was probably a trait specific to his telepathy, and few others had the same experience. Even now he often forgot. 

“Nightmares,” he told him. “Secondhand, for me—I only know because they spill over into mine.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Erik. “Do all my dreams do that?” 

“Usually.” 

“Have they always?” And he meant _always_ , was clear—and a white lie would be useless here. 

“Always.” Charles shivered a little, remembering the cold terror of the ceaseless Shaw nightmares so long ago. Erik looked stricken. “It’s all right. These stand out only because your dreams tend to be much more pleasant, these days.” 

“What are they?” 

“Mystique features prominently,” said Charles, “always… hurt. Confined. Tormented.” 

“Ah.” Erik looked down. Charles nearly set a hand on his shoulder, but reconsidered it and clasped his hands behind his back instead, unable to keep from twisting his fingers almost painfully with the question burning at him. 

“It’s been a long time, I know,” he said quietly, “and I’ve been loath to ask for—for obvious reasons, I suppose—but after you left, the two of you, were you—?” Erik did not respond immediately. Somehow silence was the worst reaction possible. “I know she wanted—” Charles prompted, haltingly—“but I thought you weren’t—” 

“No,” Erik finally said. “Well—once. Or twice. Briefly. I considered—but it was never—” he sighed. “I went to prison, you know. And luckily she lost interest in favor of someone else, and by the time I saw her—we never had to speak of it again.” 

“Not _having_ to speak of it doesn’t sound lucky,” said Charles. “That sounds… untidy.” 

“I suppose you’ve never liked to leave unfinished business.” Erik smiled slightly. “You know I’m not so upstanding.” 

“No,” said Charles sharply. It came out colder than he had intended. _I leave a lot more business unfinished lately than is entirely comfortable,_ he thought, and too late realized he had projected it. 

“Yes, and isn’t it easier?” Erik asked, spine stiffening almost imperceptibly. “That’s the beauty of it, the ease.” 

“Better to do what’s right than what’s easy.” It was a trite platitude, but it seemed relevant. 

“Doing what’s easy gets more done. There were bigger things to focus on. Always will be.” 

“Are there now?” At that Erik froze, staring at him wide-eyed for a few seconds. Deer in the headlights. 

“Of course,” he finally said. “I know you would always put your students and your own mission before any personal feelings.” Charles couldn’t argue with that. They stood in silence for a moment. Then Charles sighed, closed his eyes, and forced himself to relax and center his mind. 

“Would you _like_ me to look for her?” he asked, to draw the conversation back to the path he’d pulled it from. “Check in, make sure she’s all right?” 

“If you care to, you probably should,” said Erik. “Don’t you worry, too?” Charles considered it. _She didn’t want to come,_ echoed through his mind, kept somewhere distant for a while now. 

“Yes,” he said, “but less than I used to.” 

  


The house was exactly the same as Wanda had left it at the beginning of the semester, at least on the surface. It looked the same. The inhabitants were the same, though she was told Emma was here less of the time—she had inherited a house in Massachusetts, said Erik, and apparently had a bit of an inheritance battle to deal with amongst her siblings. Wanda had never known Emma had siblings. Erik said that neither had anyone else. 

“Let me get that for you,” said Pietro, and picked up her suitcase and zoomed off into the house. Wanda and their father moved more slowly up the steps and into the front hall, where Charles was waiting to pull her into a hug. 

“How are you?” he asked, stepping back to hold her at arm’s length and examine her. “How was school? And how was DC? You never said.” At that, her stomach turned. 

“Fine,” said Wanda noncommittally. “I’m fine.” 

“Just fine?” Charles frowned. She didn’t know if it was that she could see him eye-to-eye as he did it, or perhaps something else entirely, but for the first time Wanda could feel it as he glanced into her mind. For the first time, then, she was able to push him out. His eyes widened. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” She pulled out of his grip and walked away. 

“So I hear,” he said quietly as she went. 

Pietro was up in her room when she arrived, unpacking a box of books. That was fine, except her suitcase lay open on the bed. She rushed to close it with a heavy, angry _thud_ , and Pietro jumped. 

“Whoa,” he said. “You okay there?” 

“Did you unpack my suitcase?” Wanda snapped, suddenly angrier than she could remember being. Her stomach was a knot of anxiety. 

“Not—no, not really,” said Pietro, apparently startled enough to speak at a relatively normal pace. “Why? What’ve you got in there?” His bewilderment turned wicked, then, his expression a wide grin. With a whoosh he had pulled it away to the other side of the bed and stood rifling through it, hands moving too fast for her eyes to properly follow. 

“Stop it!” 

“Drugs? Booze? Stolen diamonds? You rob a bank or something? Cause I could show you a few things about—ohmygodnnogetitaway.” And there it was: he had found the red lingerie. He dropped it like he expected it to explode in his hands and, in a flash, was on the other side of the room. Wanda was still angry, and now a little mortified, but that reaction was just so infantile that she had to laugh at him. 

“Happy now?” she said. 

“No!” 

“I _told_ you not to look through it.” She started cramming things haphazardly back into what had been a neatly-packed suitcase. “Come on, like you’ve never seen a bra before.” 

“Well, actually—that’s not just—but it’s—you’re my little sister!” 

“I’m older than you!” Wanda laughed. “And actually, now I think about it, maybe you haven’t. I mean, you did spend high school playing video games in the basement when you weren’t doing petty crime at hyperspeed—” 

“So who’s the guy?” said Pietro loudly, changing the subject in a way that made her suspect she might be right. “Someone from school?” Still, it was a good change to distract her entirely, if not exactly a pleasant one. Wanda froze, swallowing hard. 

“Um—no. Not—no.” 

“Oh—wait, you went to see Mom on spring break!” he remembered. “Someone from high school? Ew. Or—oh my god, not that Pierce guy! I was never sure whether you guys were—” 

“We weren’t,” said Wanda sharply. “And we’re not now.” 

“That would explain why you never said anything,” said Pietro. Then he peered more closely at her. “Are you okay? You don’t seem okay. Did something bad happen with him, or?” 

“You could say that,” Wanda murmured. Pietro frowned. 

“Well, what happened?” 

“I—” she couldn’t quite bring herself to try and explain it to him. Instead she said, “god, I wish Emma were here. I could talk to _her_ —” 

“What about Dad?” 

“God, no.” She couldn’t tell Dad. She could never tell Dad. If she told Dad, Dad might just fucking explode. 

“Charles, then. You usually talk to Charles—” 

“No, I—he’s—he’s not—” 

“Is it a girl versus guy thing?” Pietro asked. “Seriously? Because yeah, I’m a guy, but I’m also your twin.” 

“Are you sure? Thought just a minute ago I was your little sister.” 

“We came out of the womb together. That’s pretty intimate on its own.” 

“Oh my god, stop.” Wanda sat down on her bed opposite him. “Look. Um—yeah. I saw Alexander while I was in DC. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, but we’ve been writing all the time, and things—um, things happened.” 

“Illuminating.” 

“Shut up. But he, um, he—well. He got—he didn’t want—I, um—he only wanted—” she looked down at her blanket, biting her lip. The girl he thought was normal, was what she didn’t say, though Pietro would think it was something else. She didn’t need to tell him. She shouldn’t; he might tell Dad. But still, even months later, it echoed in her ears: _you’re a what?—what the fuck? That shouldn’t be possible. You’re a_ freak. 

“…Oh,” said Pietro. “ _Oh._ I’m sorry.” He hugged her rather awkwardly. After a moment she hugged back, shifting over to sit closer in her twin’s arms. They hadn’t hugged much since they were little. When he first started squirming out of hugs, making Wanda cry, Mom had told her it was because he got old enough that as a boy he felt emasculated by physical contact. At the time, Wanda had had to look up most of those words in the dictionary. Maybe now he had finally grown out of it. 

“Men are terrible,” he said now. “I know because I am one.” 

“You’re not terrible.” 

“Well, no. I’m fantastic. But all the other men are terrible.” 

“Not you, though,” Wanda said mostly to herself. “Not you, or Dad, or Charles, or…” 

“Yeah, I guess they’re okay too,” said Pietro. “You forgot Hank.” 

“Sure.” 

“See?” he said, and poked her in the ribs. She shoved him back, pulling away. “There are okay men in the world, so everything will be fine, probably.” 

“Yes,” said Wanda, “though it seems I’m related to or much younger than all of them, so clearly there’s no hope for my romantic prospects.” 

“Well, since no man is good enough for my little sister,” Pietro replied thoughtfully— 

“Again, I am older than you—” 

“I guess you could always become gay. Seems to have worked for Dad.” 

“That doesn’t seem very likely.” 

“Yeah, okay.” He frowned. “Oh! I know. We’ll build you a robot husband. He’ll be the perfect man!” Wanda laughed, shaking her head. 

“Okay, this sweet twin bonding moment is clearly over.” She shoved him off her bed. “Now go away so I can unpack without you freaking out if you see my underwear.” Pietro rolled his eyes, but he kissed the top of her head before he left. 

“Hang in there, sis,” and then in an instant Pietro was gone, leaving Wanda alone with her thoughts as, her mind already there, she struggled not to dwell on the memory of the look in Alexander's eyes, then, when she told him _I'm a mutant_ : confusion, yes, but fear. 

  


When he checked on the Summers household today, Charles had to look again—surely he had miscounted. There were four lights, four glowing red figures, where usually there were only three. One was Alex, of course, and two were his children. The fourth was clustered in with the other two. They were in another room, playing a game. 

The boy and his parents were visitors to the home; examining the unfamiliar minds, Charles realized he knew the military man’s name. Once, long ago, Raven had turned into his father to prove a point. 

Colonel William Stryker shook Alex’s hand firmly and called out to Jason that it was time to go. The children chorused a unison whine of complaint, but Jason went willingly along. Charles followed the boy’s mind as he climbed into the back seat of his father’s nice car and sat quietly, obediently, as it purred into motion. So Agent Stryker had a mutant grandson—what a curious twist of fate. Ironic, even. At that thought unease grew in Charles’ stomach as he considered how this family of all families was likely to react to the boy’s abilities when they manifested. 

Perhaps William was different from his father, he thought—hoped. Perhaps their friendship with the Summerses would be beneficial. He wondered if the young Stryker had any idea Alex had been in the group that worked with his father, so long ago (that his father nearly had blown up on a beach off Cuba—but he didn’t think about that). Perhaps. Perhaps. 

Charles made a mental note of _Jason Wyngarde Stryker_ and filed it away for later. Usually this would have been the end of his telepathic rounds, but today he had one last person to check in on. Exhaling slowly, he closed his eyes and focused, trying to find the particular sensation of a mind he had never quite forgotten. 

She was nowhere to be found. Not within his limited range—and it was so limited, he only realized now, it covered so very little of the world, of course she wasn’t within it. 

He focused more closely, and thought he felt a flicker. Slowly, slowly, a faint red light flickered into being just off the eastern corner of Charles’ range, illuminating a small part of what he thought from its location must have been Germany. He didn’t look into her mind—he had _promised_ —but he did glance across it, and when he did the surface was calm and the most at peace he had ever known her to be. 

Charles nearly sobbed with relief. Any fears were unfounded; Raven was safe. That was enough. 

He watched for a few moments more, entranced by the softly flickering light that was his sister, once. He wondered what she was doing in Europe. He wondered. He wondered. 

_Raven,_ he thought hesitantly, barely brushing against her thoughts. Not deep enough to see anything—only to know she would hear him. A moment of silence, her good mood twisting a little through it. Then, hesitant and almost disbelieving, 

_Charles?_

That, of course, was when the last of the overtaxed serum drained from his system. He collapsed to the floor as the lights faded out, the glowing area becoming smaller and smaller as lights blinked out in a progression he had probably learned as related rates, once upon a time. The fading rate sped up faster and faster until the last light Charles could keep a hold on was a small, weak red one, curled on the floor of Cerebro, unable to move. 

Then a light—bright, strong, brilliant red—blossomed not far from his in the spherical void all around. Charles sat up, then stood, granted the ability again by what seemed to be some kind of connection. As he watched, the light coalesced into the form of a young girl. Another telepath, or perhaps telekinetic, or both, or something else entirely: whatever her power, it let him stand (for a wild few seconds he thought if he tried hard enough it might let him fly), though the longer he stood there the more it felt strange and just on the edge of painful, like he was burning up from within. 

He focused on her location, committed it to memory, and let her go, sitting carefully on the floor before he did. Cerebro whirred down around him as his legs went numb again with more of a prickling sensation than usual. 

_Hank,_ Charles called out cautiously, careful not to be too forceful with the projection: his powers always took a little tuning, adjusting between using them with serum and without. _Erik._ After a few minutes he felt them both come running up to the door, which Erik opened with a wave of his hand. 

“What happened?” he asked, falling to kneel at Charles’ side. “Are you all right?” He pressed a hand to Charles’ forehead. Charles smiled, batting it away. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m fine. Erik, I checked on Raven—she’s fine—but I found a mutant, a child, and _oh,_ the ability, she—Hank,” he finished, interrupting himself, knowing he was babbling, “if you could perhaps try to see your way clear to getting on with our wager soon, that would be excellent, because I think we may very soon wish to open up the school again.” 

  


“Hey, Nick.” Only one other agent could open that door uninvited, and his tousled blond head peered through it as he spoke. 

“Yeah?” 

“Your eye doing any better?” Alexander came all the way in and leaned on the doorframe. Nick shrugged. 

“I’ll live.” 

“Well, sure.” The younger agent grinned encouragingly. It faded as Nick just leveled him a flat gaze. So he could still do the dead stare even with the eyepatch. Good to know, since even the best doctors said it was never going away again. “So. Um.” 

“You want something, Alexander,” said Nick. “Spit it out.” 

“Well, first thing, I came to tell you we’re moving on to the next phase of Project 169,” Alexander told him. “We’ve learned all we’re going to, which unfortunately isn’t much. Regardless, it’s been twenty years. Time to let her reintegrate.” 

“Where’s she going to be placed?” Nick asked. 

“Georgetown, we’re thinking.” 

“Georgetown?” 

“No matter who asks, she always cites her interest as evolutionary biology,” Alexander explained, “so as long as the wipe doesn’t _totally_ alter her personality we expect she’ll go into scientific research or medicine.” 

“Huh. Okay,” said Nick. “That’s the first thing, and the second?” 

“You mind if I borrow Garrett for a day or two?” Alexander asked. “I know you’re his SO, but I figure you’ve got Coulson, too, and—” 

“And one too few eyes now to keep one on each of them?” said Nick dryly. Alexander blanched. 

“No, no—that’s not what I meant. Just that I’ve got a mission I could use Garrett on, and since you’ve got two underlings I figure you can spare one of them for a weekend—” 

“I was kidding, you know.” 

“…I do know,” said Alexander, and as a spy he was a good enough liar that it was almost convincing. 

“It’s just an eye,” Nick added. “Don’t be so damn skittish, Pierce. It’s not like if you point it out I’m gonna take out one of yours.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Alexander’s easy smile returned. “So can I have Garrett?” 

“Sure.” Nick shrugged. “You know, even if it wasn’t your real point, you might’ve had one about two trainees being a little too much for me right now. Maybe you could pitch in a little. With them.” 

“Well, then let’s start here,” said Alexander. “I’ll take Garrett on this mission, get to know the kid a little.” Yeah—he’d get along well with Garrett, probably. Hell, he could take point on that one for a while. Nick would hang on to Coulson, though—he had plans for the kid, whether the kid knew it yet or not. 

“Deal. Go get him.” Nick turned back to his reports as Alexander turned to go. Just as the door started to slide shut behind him it occurred to him to ask—“wait up. What _is_ the mission you’re taking my trainee on?” 

“Got a report to check out,” Alexander tossed over his shoulder. “Should be interesting.” 

“084?” Nick called, stopping Alexander in his tracks altogether. He turned all the way around and stepped back inside. 

“Not quite.” 

“Then what?” 

“A gifted individual. Maybe even more than one.” His normally-cheerful face looked almost grim for a moment. “We should really start keeping some kind of index of those.” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Nick. “Have fun.” 

“We’ll do our best,” said Alexander, smiling again, and breezed out of the office as easily as he had entered. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Belated: and now for something completely different!)
> 
> So sorry this chapter took so long. (Hellfire has been sitting dormant for even longer. Ugh.) I had... finals, then moving home for the summer, then immediately moving to a different home because my parents are trying to sell our house, and between all that I sort of got distracted by some of my original universes, getting deep into a new fandom, and also two completely different X-Men aus that I'm trying to hold off on starting until I have at least one of these WIPs finished.
> 
> On this story I do now have a lot of stuff written preemptively that will eventually become a buffer, but most of it's for closer to the end. Right now we're only around... like the middle. The main action I originally had planned is actually only just about to begin. (You could maybe tell it's about to hit the fan, so to speak.)
> 
> If you read this, thanks for hanging in there! I promise I'll try to do better about keeping up. Kudos and comments are still appreciated.


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